Verses 18-32
PART FIRST
The Doctrine of Justification by Faith as the Restoration of the true Glorification of God
CHAPTERS 1–11_____________________FIRST DIVISIONSIN AND GRACE IN THEIR FIRST ANTITHESIS, THE REALLY RELIGIOUS AND MORAL LIFE. THE ACTUAL ENTRANCE OF CORRUPTION AND SALVATION. GOD’S WRATH AT ALL HUMAN UNRIGHTEOUSNESS; THAT IS, THE WORLD’S REAL CORRUPTION MATURING FOR DEATH, AND HASTENED BY THE JUDGMENT OF GOD; AND THE OPPOSING JUSTIFICATION OF SINNERS THROUGH THE MERCY-SEAT, OR PARDON IN CHRIST IN RESPONSE TO FAITH. THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF FAITH
First Section.—The beginning of all the real corruption of the world, and of the Gentiles in particular, together with the judgment pronounced on it. The neglect of the general revelation of God in creation by the neglect of the real worship of God in thanksgiving and praise (Romans 1:18-21).
Second Section.—The development of Gentile corruption under God’s judicial abandonment (the departure of His Spirit, and the decree of ripeness for judgment). From arbitrary symbolism to the worship of images and beasts; from theoretical to practical corruption; from natural to unnatural and abominable sins, to the completion of all kinds of crimes and iniquities, and to the demoniacal lust of evil, and even of evil maxims (Romans 1:22-32).
18For the wrath of God [God’s wrath] is revealed [in opposition to that revelation of God’s righteousness, Romans 1:17] from heaven against all ungodliness [godlessness] and unrighteousness [iniquity] of men, who hold [hold back]73 the truth in unrighteousness; 19Because74 that which may be known [which is known]75 of God is manifest in them;76 for God hath shewed [God manifested]77 it unto [to] them. 20For the invisible things of him [his unseen attributes] from the creation of the world are [are, since the creation of the world,]78 clearly seen,79 being understood by the things that are made [by means of his works], even his eternal power and Godhead [Divinity,80 θειότης, notθεότης]; so that81 they are without excuse 21[inexcusable, ἀναπολογήτους]. Because that, when they knew God [because, knowing God, or, although they knew God, διότι γνόντες τὸν θεόν], they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful [they did not glorify him as God, nor give thanks to him as God]; but became vain in their imaginations [thoughts], and their foolish heart was darkened.
22, 23Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed [exchanged] the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man [for a likeness of an image of corruptible man], and to [of] birds, and fourfooted beasts [quadrupeds], and creeping things [reptiles].
24Wherefore God also82 gave them up to uncleanness, through the lusts of their own hearts [God delivered them over, in the lusts of their hearts, to uncleanness], to dishonor their own bodies between themselves [so that their 25bodies were dishonored among them].83 Who changed [They who exchanged]84 the truth of God into [for] a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more 26[rather] than the Creator,85 who is blessed forever. Amen. For this cause God gave them up [delivered them over] unto [to] vile affections [shameful passions]:86 for even their women did change [exchanged] the natural, use into 27[for] that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust [lustful excitement] one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly [working the (well known) indecency, τὴν αἰοχημοσύνην], and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet [the due reward of their error].
28And even as they did not like [And as they did not deem it worthy, orworth while, οὐχ ἐδοχίμασαν] to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate [worthless, ἀδόκιμον]87 mind, to do those things which are not convenient 29[becoming];88 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication,89 wickedness [malice], covetousness, maliciousness [badness]; full of envy, murder, 30debate [strife, ἔριδος], deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters [slanderers], haters of God,90 despiteful [insolent], proud, boasters, inventors of evil things 31[villanies], disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenant-breakers 32[truce-breakers], without natural affection, implacable,91 unmerciful: Who, knowing [although they well know] the judgment [just decree] of God, that they which [who] commit [practice, πράσσοντες] such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them [approve of those who practise them, συνευδοκοῦσιν τοῖς πράσσουσιν].
General Remarks.—The whole section, in its progress to the end of the chapter, relates more particularly to the heathen world (Tholuck, Meyer). Yet it describes the corruption in its original form as a general corruption of humanity. The antithesis: Heathendom and Judaism was a subsequent development. Romans 1:24, with its causality in Romans 1:22-23, constitutes the more definite beginning of heathenism. Tholuck recommends the treatise of Adam, Exercitationes Exegeticœ, 1712, pp. 501–738, on the section Romans 1:18-32. Tholuck remarks: “What the Apostle says of the relations of the Gentile world, and afterwards of the Jews, to God, naturally applies to their universality, but to individuals only in a greater or less degree.” We add: So that a relative opposition is embraced within the general judgment (see Romans 2:6 ff.).
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
First Section, Romans 1:18-21
Romans 1:18. For God’s wrath is revealed. The ἀποχάλυψις of the ὀργὴ θεοῦ, as the revelation which was historically earlier, is contrasted with the revelation of the righteousness of God from faith. It is therewith intimated that that righteousness denotes grace, or justifying righteousness; but that the ὀργὴ θεοῦ is an exercise of penal righteousness which precedes it.92 The wrath of God, as an emotion of God, is His personal displeasure at sin as ἀσέβεια, as conscious transgression, as apostasy, as unbelief, and therefore as the limitation of His personal revelation in the world. It is a displeasure which is revealed by such decrees of penal justice as death and the terrors of death, especially in retribution for obstructions placed in the way of the divine life (Exodus 4:14; Exodus 4:24; Psalms 90:7-8), by a decree of blindness in retribution for the hinderances to His truth (the present passages; Isaiah 6:10; Romans 9.; 2 Corinthians 3:14; Matthew 13:14; John 12:40; Acts 28:26), by the abandonment to the lusts of the flesh in retribution for the general resistance to His Spirit (Ephesians 2:3), and finally, by a decree of reprobation and condemnation in retribution for the hinderances to salvation by apostasy and unbelief (Matthew 3:7; Matthew 22:13; John 3:36; Romans 5:9). Comp. my article, Zorn Gottes, in Herzog’s
Realencyklopædie. This ὀργὴ θεοῦ has its ἀποκάλυψις immediately, so far as it is declared to the conscience of man as God’s decree from heaven; but it becomes especially an ἀποκάλυψις by the witness of the law, and is perfected in the light of the gospel. It is revealed in a real manner from heaven, as a message from the height of the holy, supernatural world, and from the throne of Divine government. And it is revealed in an ideal way by the light of righteousness, which, like a flame of wrath from the kingdom of the Spirit, shines down into the realm of consciously guilty human life, and explains its dark fate. The older writers understood by ὀργή, punishment alone, taking metonymically the operation for the cause [metonymia causœ pro effectu = κόλασις, τιμωρία]. But we must unite both. The opposite of ὀργή is not merely ἀγάπη (Tholuck), but ἔλεος (see my Positive Dogmatik, p. 109). According to De Wette [and Alford], wrath is only an anthropopathic conception of the righteousness of God in punishment; but by this interpretation its procession ἀπ ̓ αὐρανοῦ is obliterated. The internal ἀποχάλυψις of wrath involves its external φανέρωσις, but it is one-sided to confine it to the punishment which God has determined for the heathen world (De Wette), or the wretched condition of the world at that time (Köllner), or to the manifestation of the punishment in the conscience (Tholuck), or in the gospel (Grotius). From the beginning, the deeds of wrath have ever succeeded the ἀσέβεια in its opposition to God’s government and revelation. But the complete ἀποκάλυψις thereof does not appear before the New Testament ἀποκάλυψις of grace. The reason of this is, that the world’s guilt reaches its climax in the crucifixion and death of Christ. The ἀσέβεια—the rebellion of unbelief to the revelation of the divine light and life (Romans 2:4-5; Romans 8:6-7)—sums up the whole idea of sin which incurs the guilt of God’s wrath. The idea of the ὀργή itself is God’s abandonment of man to the judgment of death. And the idea of the ἀποκἀλυψις of this ὀργή is the entire revelation of the judgment of God in the corruption of the world amid the light of the gospel, for the conscience of humanity, especially the body of believers. The idea of the οὐρανός is the heavenly world in its ideal laws, which lie also at the foundation of the earthly world, and react against all abnormal conduct with punishment and death. The present, ἀποκαλύπτεται, must be emphasized; it is neither merely a historical reference to the misery of the old world (Köllner, and others), nor (with Chrysostom, and others) a reference to the future day of wrath. It means, rather, a progressive revelation of the judgment in opposition to which the progressive revelation of the righteousness of salvation in the gospel acquires its perfect significance and clearness. The ἀπ ̓ οὐρανοῦ certainly refers chiefly to ἀποκαλύπγτεται, but it is indirectly declared thereby that the ὀργὴ θεοῦ is from heaven, although, as a judgment immanent in life itself, it breaks forth from its internal state, or is caused by it. Special interpretations of the ὀργή: The religion of the Old Testament (Bengel); storms and natural disasters (Pelagius); external and internal necessities of the times (Baumgarten-Crusius).
Against all ungodliness and unrighteousness. The ἀσέβεια [godlessness, impiety] is the fundamental form of personal misconduct toward God; but the word is more especially significant in that it describes ungodliness as the absence of reverence for God. See Romans 1:21. The ἀδικία [unrighteousness, iniquity] is the correspondent fundamental form of misconduct toward God’s law in life, and therefore not toward our neighbor alone. Theophylact, Tholuck, and many others: Profanitas in Deum, injuria in proximnm. [So Hodge: ἀσέβεια, impiety toward God; ἀδικία, injustice toward men.—P. S.] Meyer, on the contrary: Irreligiousness and immorality, which is supported by the following description. [Ἀσέβεια is the fountain of ἀδικία, but both act and react upon each other.—P. S.]—Of men. Antithesis of ὀργὴ θεοῦ. The word signifies, first, the universality of guilt; second, the weakness of man’s enmity against Almighty God.
Who hold back the truth. Description of the obstructions which, as the wicked reaction against the revelation of God, cause the reaction of Divine displeasure in the form of the ὀργή. The truth is the revelation of God in its most general sense, as the unity and harmony of all the single Divine acts of revelation, with a special reference here to the natural revelation of God (Romans 1:19-20); although the doctrines of the gospel (of which Ammon explains ἀλήθεια) must not be excluded from the general idea, nor must the natural knowledge of God be substituted for the revelation of God. The κατέχειν (to grasp, to hold, here with the accessory idea of holding back) strikingly denotes hinderance, keeping back (Meyer, improperly, keeping down); as is the case with καταλαμβάνειν in Joh 1:5.93 An odd explanation is this: “Who possess the truth with unrighteousness; that is, sin against, better knowledge” (Michaelis, Koppe, Baur).—In unrighteousness. Not adverbial (Reiche, et al.), but instrumental (Meyer).94 The word must be understood here in the wide sense, according to which all sin is ἀδικία. See 1 John 3:4. The sentence must be understood, however, in its general force, though with special reference already to the Gentiles. The history of this κατέχειν is the history of the kingdom of darkness in humanity, which is consummated in the ἀντικεὶμενος, 2 Thessalonians 2:8; comp. especially also 2 Thessalonians 1:8. According to De Wette, the κατέχειν operates so as not to let the truth come to appearance and development. But it also so operates as to pervert the individual elements of the truth into distortions, errors, and strong delusions, and thereby calls down the wrath of God. We must observe how decidedly the Apostle here views the ἀπιστία ethically as ἀπεὶθεια; and how he derives the errors of unbelief from unrighteousness, and from misconduct toward the ethical laws of the inner life.
Romans 1:19. Because that which is known of God.95 The διότι in Romans 1:19 may be regarded as an explanation of the statement in Romans 1:18, with special reference to the holding back of the truth of God; the διότι in Romans 1:21 as the explanation of the preceding ἀναπολογήτους εἶναι; and the διὸ in Romans 1:24, as well as the διὰ τοῦτο in Romans 1:26, as the explanation of the revelation of God’s wrath. Though the διότι of Romans 1:19 is not to be regarded exactly the same as γάρ, it does not serve specially as a proof of the motive for Divine wrath. For more particular information, see Tholuck and Meyer.96
The knowledge of God.97 Tholuck distinguishes three meanings of γνωστόν: 1. That which is known of God (Itala, Vulg., De Wette [Meyer, Philippi, Alford, Wordsworth.—P. S.]); 2. what may be known (Photius, and many others; Rückert); 3. knowledge [ = γνῶσις. Fritzsche, Tholuck, Hodge.—P. S.]. He shows that γνωστός, according to the classical use of the language, means, what may be known; while γνωτός means, what is known. But in the Septuagint and New Testament the signification, known, is undoubted. Nevertheless, many expositors, from the time of Origen down to the present [Theophylact, Œcumenius, Erasmus, Calvin, Beza, Grotius, Ewald], have pronounced in favor of the translation, what may be known. But this signification does not make good sense, since it is difficult to distinguish between what may, and what may not be known of God, and since every thing that may be known of God was by no means revealed at the beginning to the nations (see Meyer). We understand what is known of God concretely as knowledge [Kenntniss, γνῶσις], notitia dei—which should become true knowledge [Erkenntniss, ἐπίγνωσις] by living appropriation. Luther has made the untenable distinction, that the reason of man can know that God is, but cannot know who or what He is. Tholuck justly remarks that the Apostle immediately afterward speaks of a certain knowledge of the nature of God. [The book of nature is a παιδευτήριον θεογνωσὶας, as Basil (Hexaëmeron, i.) calls it, a school of the general knowledge of God, and there is no nation on earth which is entirely destitute of this knowledge.—P. S.]
Is manifest among them.98 Erasmus, Grotius, Köllner, and Baumgarten-Crusius, adopt this explanation.99 On the contrary, Tholuck, Meyer, and De Wette—with reference to Romans 2:15; Galatians 1:16—strongly advocate Calvin’s interpretation, cordibus insculptum. [So also Beza: “In ipsorum animis, quia hœc Dei notitia recondita est in intimis mentis penetralibus;” and Hodge: “It is not of a mere external revelation of which the Apostle is speaking, but of that evidence of the being and perfection of God which every man has in the constitution of his own nature, and in virtue of which he is competent to apprehend the manifestations of God in His works.”—P. S.] But ἀποκαλύψαι stands in Galatians 1:16; and in Romans 2:15, the question is God’s manifestation by conscience, and not by creation. De Wette says: If the knowledge of God had been something common among them, it would not have been suppressed (κατεχόμενον).100 But this is not conclusive. We could say with more propriety: If there had been no general knowledge of God among them, there would have been no common guilt. We must admit, however, that among them presupposes in them, or the existence of a knowledge of God in their hearts.—God manifested it to them. This was not first of all ἀποκάλυψις, but φανέρωσις—manifestation through creation. And thus there arose from individuals a manifest knowledge of God—a φανερόν. The reference of this φανερόν to the gnosis of the philosophers (Erasmus, Grotius) is too contracted. But there was a tradition of the knowledge of God among men which preceded the development of heathenism. (It is hardly worth while to mention the explanation of Luther, Koppe, Flatt, that ἐν αὐτοῖς is the mere dative.) [There is a threefold revelation of God: 1. An internal revelation to the reason and conscience of every man (comp. Romans 2:15; John 1:9); 2. an external revelation in the creation, which proclaims God’s power, wisdom, and goodness (Romans 1:20); 3. a special revelation, through the Holy Scriptures, and in the person and work of Christ, which confirms and completes the other revelations, and exhibits the justice, holiness, and love of God. The first two are here intended.—P. S.]
Romans 1:20. For his invisible attributes [τά, ἀόρατα αὐτοῦ]. Explanation of the declaration: “God manifested it to them.” Meyer: “That may not be seen of Him (sein Unschaubares), the invisible attributes which constitute His essence, not actiones Dei invisibiles.” (Theodoret and Fritzsche: In relation to both creation and providence.) The pictures of creation, however, are also permanent actiones, and so far providence is at least indicated. [The ἀόρατα is subsequently explained by δύναμις, and θειότης, and the τέ, followed by καί, as Tholuck remarks, does not annex a new idea (and also), but it partitions the ἀόρατα into the two ideas of δύναμις and θειότης. Paul has in view simply some of the Divine attributes, not the whole Divine being (which would rather require to τὸ ); the pagan knowledge of God is only partial and fragmentary, though sufficient to leave those who possess it without excuse.—P. S.]
From the time of the creation of the world. Not out of the creation (Luther, and others). This idea is contained in τοῖς ποιήμ. (De Wette). κτίσις, moreover, is here equal to καταβολή, (Fritzsche).—Being understood by the things that are made.101 An oxymoron, Arist., De mundo C. [vi.]: [πάσῃ θνητῇ φύσει γενόμενος] ἀθεώρητος ̓ αὐτῶν τῶν ἔργων θεωρεῖται ὁθεός.102 Meyer thus paraphrases the νοούμενα καθορᾶται: It is beheld by being perceived with the reason. We might ask: Should the sentence read, The invisible becomes visible by knowledge, as the means; or, it becomes visible as something known, perceptible to the reason? The latter thought is preferable here, since it is better adapted to the participle, and presupposes the import of the power, the thought-life of man. Philippi also limits himself to the middle form: “The invisible is seen; an oxymoron which is explained and qualified by the addition of νοούμενα. It is not seen by the bodily eye, but by the eye of the Spirit, the νοῦς, the reason.” Our view is favored by the original sense of καθορᾷν, a conception which passes through looking down and looking over into looking at.—By the things that are made [ by and in (his) works, τοῖς ποιήμασιν, instrumental dative.—P. S.]. These are therefore signs of the attributes of God. Schneckenburger (after Episcopius, and others) includes among them the government of God in history. But the conception of מעֲשֶׂה, creature, is against this view. Baumgarten-Crusius, following the Syriac and other versions, takes ποιήμασι, in an ablative sense—by the creature—which is quite untenable.—His eternal power and divinity. [ἀΐδιος, from ἀδί, ever-enduring, eternal, belongs to both nouns. Here is the germ of the physicotheological argument for the existence of God, as in Romans 1:19 the ontological argument is intimated.—P. S.] Here, as in the Creed [I believe in God the Father Almighty], omnipotence serves as the representative of the attributes of God. Tholuck: “In the contemplation of nature, the first thing which strikes man with overpowering weight is the impression of an infinite, supernatural omnipotence (Book of Wis 13:4). All religion has its root in the feeling of dependence on supernatural powers (?). To the patriarchs God first revealed Himself as שַׁדַּי, as the Almighty; Exodus 6:3” (Genesis 17:1).103—And his Divinity. θειότης, from θεῖος, is the summary of the divinities, or divine excellencies, and must be distinguished from θεότης, the term which denotes the Divine Being itself. The omnipotence is completed by the remaining Divine attributes, through which it really becomes omnipotence in the full ethical as well as metaphysical sense. It is onesided if Schneckenburger refers it only to God’s goodness. Reiche’s thought is better, that wisdom and goodness are chiefly meant.
So that they are without excuse. Meyer does not regard the εἰς as expressing a consequence—as most commentators do [Vulg.: Ita ut sint inexcusabiles; Chrysostom, Luther, Reiche, De Wette, Fritzsche, Tholuck, Philippi, Ewald, Alford, Words worth, Hodge]—but a purpose (in harmony with Calvin, Beza, and others): In order that they may be without excuse. But this rendering leads to a monstrous view of the purpose of the creation of the world. It is too fatalistic even for the conception of predestination, which it was once designed to support. Meyer urges in its defence that εἰς, in the Epistle to the Romans, when used with τό and the infinitive, has always a teleological sense, against which [De Wette and] Tholuck (p. 67) protest. Then he insists that the results must also be determined beforehand. But this would be a kind of predestination which is self-contradictory: Predestinated—to have no excuse; that is, predestinated for guilt. The other explanation implies by no means a sufficientia religionis naturalis ad salutem, but it permits the possibility of another form of the course of development from Adam to Christ. [The object here is to show man’s guilt, not God’s sovereignty. Comp. on εἰς τό the Textual Note104. Hodge: “Paul does not here teach that it is the design of God, in revealing Himself to men, to render their opposition inexcusable, but rather, since this revelation has been made, they have in fact no apology for their ignorance and neglect of God. Though the revelation of God in His works is sufficient to render men inexcusable, it does not follow that it is sufficient to Lead men, blinded by sin, to a saving knowledge of Himself.” Wordsworth: “It can hardly be thought that the conviction, confusion, and condemnation of men was any part of the Divine plan in creation, although it followed as a consequence from it.”—P. S.]
Romans 1:21. Because, although they knew God, &c. The διότι explains first of all how far they are without excuse; then, indirectly, how their guilt of holding back the truth in unrighteousness commenced. Incorrect construction: cum cognoscere potuissent (Œcumenius, Flatt).105 Meyer has no ground for opposing the solution of the participle γνόντες into the sentence: although they knew God (not, perceived Him). The contradiction between knowing God and the designated neglect of Him is obvious indeed; but herein precisely consists the inexcusableness. The ignorance (ἄγνοια) of the Gentile world, Ephesians 4:18, &c., is improperly regarded by Tholuck as an apparent contradiction; for the Gentile world was not such at the outset, and its ignorance is the result and punishment of its great sin of neglect. They lost even their imperfect knowledge (γνῶσις), because they did not raise it to full knowledge (ἐπίγνωσις) through the labor of the heart, [τὸν θεόν, the one true God, in opposition to the false θεοί whom the heathen worshipped.—P. S.]
They glorified him not as God. According to His divinity (John 4:24). They were not wanting in worship, but in worship suitable to God. Melanchthon refers δοξάζειν to theoretical, and εὐχαριστεῖν to practical conduct toward God (as recognition and reverence); but Tholuck very justly rejects such an interpretation, and regards δοξάζειν as the general term for worship, and εὐχ, as the special designation of that species in which the feeling of dependence exhibits itself in the most tender and truly human way. In our opinion, the former denotes rather all worship, so far as it should be preëminently the glorification of God; the latter denotes the same worship as the grateful recognition of the Divine government for human welfare.106
But became vain [ἐματαιώθησαν]. They became idle, foolish, in devising vanities (Isaiah 44:9), vain idols, μάταια (Acts 14:15). [ματαιότης, חֶבִל, vanitas, is a characteristic term for idol-worship; Deuteronomy 32:21; 2 Kings 17:5; Jeremiah 2:5; Acts 14:15.—P. S.] “As man, so his God.” The axiom may also be reversed: As his God, so man himself (Psalms 115:8); They that make them are like unto them. The human mind is made dumb, wooden, and stone-like, by dumb, wooden, and stone idols (comp. Acts 17:29). But that vanity began in the inward life.—In their imaginations [thoughts, reasonings, speculations, διαλογισμοῖς], Tholuck: “We can scarcely coincide with the Vulgate, Fritzsche, Meyer, and Philippi, in translating διαλογισμοί simply by cogitata. But since the word is used usually malo sensu, and the antithesis is more expressive, we may translate it, with Luther: ‘In their imagining;’ Beza: rationibus suis. We need not think exclusively of the reasonings and conclusions of the philosophers (Philippi).” Mythology was complete with its growth of ideals and images long before philosophy proper was conceived.
And their foolish heart was darkened. The supposition that “foolish” (ἀσύνετος) is used proleptically in the sense that their heart was darkened so as to lose its understanding (De Wette), is not only unnecessary (Tholuck), but altogether irrelevant (Meyer: “because it destroys the climax”).107 Positive darkness was the result of the negative neglect of the heart to regard the Divine tokens, and to weigh them understandingly. The καρδία, the centre of life, is first, darkened; then the διάνοια, the developed thought-life (Ephesians 4:18), Tholuck: In this section the Apostle coincides so fully in word and thought, with the Book of Wisdom, chaps. 13–15, that Nitzsch regards it “almost impossible” to ascribe perfect originality to him. Yet he himself admits that the fundamental thought—the tracing of idolatry back to sin—was unknown to the Alexandrine author, &c. (comp. Nitzsch, Deutsche Zeitschrift, 1850, p. 387; Bleek, Stud, und Kritiken, 1853, p. 340).
Second Section, Romans 1:22-31
Romans 1:22. Professing themselves [i.e., while, not became, they professed themselves, φάσκοντες, or pretended] to be wise. De Wette: “This is referred by many, and also by Tholuck, to the philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome. But these were above idolatry, and, besides, were later than the origin of idolatry,” &c.108 The latter remark requires special attention. The question here is concerning the very ancient origin of heathendom, as characterized by the far-fetched ingenuities of symbolical mythicism. Nor could Paul have had in thought merely the pride of Grecian wisdom. But in contemplating it, he could also judge concerning the origin of heathenism. Comp. 1 Corinthians 1:19-25; 1 Corinthians 3:19. Calvin: “Neque enim id proprie in philosophos competit, etc., sed œque commune est gentium ordinumque omnium. Nemo enim fuit, qui non voluerit Dei majestatem sub captum suum includere, ac talem Deum facere, qualem percipere posset suopte sensu.”—They became fools. Not, they have by this means shown themselves to be fools (Köllner), which weakens the thought. [Their folly was in proportion to their, boast of wisdom. There can be no greater folly than to worship a beast rather than God. Wordsworth in loc.: “Intelligence is no safeguard against superstition. Knowledge puffeth up (1 Corinthians 8:1). It often engenders pride, and pride is punished by God with spiritual blindness, which is the mother of idolatry.”—P. S.]
Romans 1:23. And exchanged, &c. They have abandoned the real δόξα [כְּבוֹר יְהוָֹה]—the contemplation of God’s glory—which was communicated to them through the spiritual contemplation of the creation, which was manifested to the Israelites in the Shekinah in the exalted moments of vision, and which was finally communicated to Christians in the righteousness of Christ for faith. They exchanged this glory for their religious images—that is, for vanity, folly, and darkness. “The ἐν cannot be taken for εἰς (Reiche [E. V.]), but is instrumental” (Meyer). It denotes the external element of their exchange. [The verb ἀλλάσσειν, when it means to exchange, is usually construed with τί τινος or ἀντἱ τινος, permutare rem per rem or re, but in the LXX. with ἐν, after the Hebrew הֵמִיר בְּ, as in Psalms 106:20 : ἠλλάξαντο τήν δόξαν αὐτὼν ἐν ὁμοιώματι μόσχου, κ.τ.λ. Tholuck quotes also Sophocles, Antig., 1:936, for the same construction. The contrast of ἀφθἁρτου and φθαρτοῦ sets forth the folly of such an exchange.—P. S.] Grotius: ὁμοίωμα εἰκόνος, figura, quœ apparet in simulacro. Meyer quotes Revelation 9:7 in favor of this view. But the expression seems to indicate that the worship of images proceeded from an arbitrary, self-created symbolism. They believed that they wisely expressed and maintained the δόξα of God in the symbol or likeness of a human image. For this purpose they naturally made use of the image of the external and therefore perishable form of man. This was specially the case among the Greeks. There were also the Egyptian images of beasts: of birds —the bird Ibis; of four-footed beasts—the Apis, the dog and the cat; and of creeping things—the crocodile and the serpent. Tholuck: The Egyptian worship was at that time domesticated at Rome;109 and the expression of Paul relates as well to the adoration of the symbol, generally practised by the cultivated classes, as to the adoration of the image itself, as a real idol, which prevailed among the great masses (see Tholuck). [The common people saw in the idols the gods themselves, the cultivated heathen, symbolical representations, or, at best, only the organs through which the gods operated. A similar difference of a gross and a more refined superstition is found in the Roman Catholic Church with regard to the images of saints. The Scriptures make no account of this distinction, and denounce all image-worshippers as idolaters.—P. S.] The Apostle traces the downward tendency of heathendom, by passing, first, from the likeness to the image, and, second, from the image of man to the images of creeping animals. [Wordsworth: “καὶ—καὶ—καί—observe this repetition, marking successive stages of their moral and intellectual degradation: ending in the transmutation of the living God of heaven into the likeness of unclean reptiles crawling upon the earth!”—P. S.]
Romans 1:24. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness. The Apostle evidently distinguishes two degrees of this abandonment; Romans 1:24 and Romans 1:26. As the unnatural sins of lust are not mentioned before Romans 1:26, so may we understand Romans 1:24 as referring to the natural forms of sensuality. But lewdness is the sin common to both degrees of corruption. That the Apostle should regard sins of lust as the immediate result of religious apostasy, rests: 1. On the Hebrew idea of whoredom, according to which religious whoredom—that is, idolatry—leads to moral whoredom as its most immediate result (Numbers 25:0; Ezekiel 23:0); just as, reversely, moral unchastity leads to religious lewdness (Solomon, Henry IV. [of France]). The heathen forms of worship are therefore connected in various ways with the practice of lust, or they are even the worship of lust. 2. On the ethical law, that moral principles stand in reciprocal connection with religious principles. The image of corruptible man is an image of the natural man, who, like Jupiter, indulges in love intrigues. The image of the bull likewise indicates the deification of the generative power of nature.
Wherefore God gave them up [παρέδωκεν, delivered them over]. The abandonment must not be regarded, with the Greek expositors [since Origen], as a mere permission110 (συγχώρησις—see Chrysostom’s remarks, quoted by Tholuck [who dissents from him]), nor, on the other hand, as referring to a Divine predestination of abandonment to the judgment of condemnation. (Tholuck, the editor of Calvin’s Commentaries, calls this the Calvinistic view, according to which God is the effective author of sin;—but this he could certainly not prove from Calvin’s exposition of the present passage.) The abandonment is rather the first stage in the exercise of punitive authority (see my Positive Dogmatics, p. 468). God executed this punishment on a grand scale in the origin and growth of heathendom. He allowed the Gentiles to walk in their own ways (Acts 14:16; Psalms 81:13; Psalms 147:20). The permittere in this punishment becomes an effective operation by God’s withdrawal of His Spirit; which measure His holiness requires.111 Paul has already said that this withdrawal is retributive; but he now makes it especially prominent: in the lusts of their hearts, ἐν ταῖς ἐπιθυμίαις, &c. The ἐν must not be understood as instrumental [by or through] (Erasmus [E. V.], and others), nor like εἰς (Piscat., Estius, and others) [but signifies the element or moral condition in which they were already when God, by a judicial act, delivered them over to a still worse condition.—P. S.]. The negative punitive judgment becomes positive in this, that they can no longer control the lusts of their heart after God’s Spirit is withdrawn from them. It is in harmony with God’s righteousness that sin should be punished by sin.—To uncleanness. The sins of thought and heart became sins of deed. The expression filthiness (Unflätherei, Meyer) seems too strong for the beginning of the development of uncleanness. In Galatians 5:19 (to which Meyer refers), the description passes from the grosser to the more subtle forms.
So that their bodies were dishonored. De Wette and Tholuck [Meyer, Alford, al.] maintain that ἀτιμάζεαθαι does not occur in the middle (Erasmus, Luther [E. V.]), but only in the passive voice. The bodies were already dishonored by natural lewdness, by which they lost their dignity as temples of God, and were degraded into instruments of sensual lust (and not merely “woman;” Tholuck). See 1 Corinthians 6:16.—Between themselves. Three explanations: 1. The ἐν is instrumental (Theophylact, Köllner). Then the moral subject is wanting. 2. The ἐν αὐτοῖς has a reciprocal signification equal to ἐν , reciprocally (Erasmus, De Wette, Tholuck, and others). Meyer: One dishonors the other. This construction is favored by the reciprocal sexual intercourse which disappears in the unnatural lewdness described in Romans 1:26. Romans 1:3. Reflexive (Vulgate, Luther, Calvin, and others). Tholuck remarks on this, that to themselves does not give clear sense. Comp., on the contrary, 1 Corinthians 6:16. We may adopt the second explanation, and yet the third need not be given up—namely, that in natural lewdness not only does one dishonor the other, but each dishonors himself.
Romans 1:25. They who exchanged the truth of God. According to Meyer and Tholuck, Paul returns expressly to the cause of the abandonment. But by this they overlook the definite progress of thought—namely, the argument for the abandonment of the second degree which follows in Romans 1:26. As a punishment of the heathen for squandering the δόξα of God for the paltry sum of images, their own bodies have lost their δόξα. But they are further charged with bartering the truth of God for the lie of idolatry, since they have served the creature παρὰ τὸν κτίσαντα. Therefore God gave them up to a lie of sexual lust, to a lust παρὰ φύσιν. It is from this parallel, which the commentators have overlooked, that exact exegetical definitions on this passage arise.—They who exchanged, Οἵτινες, Quippe qui. The expression denotes them as the same, but characterizes them more fully. The sense is, they exchanged for (sie tauschten um), μετήλλαξαν, which is not merely “more emphatic” (Meyer) than ἤλλαξαν. It includes, with the exchange, a very strong conception of change, of variation.—The truth of God. Explanations: 1. The truth revealed to the Gentiles (Camerarius, Reiche, and others). 2. θεοῦ is genit. object.; therefore the true knowledge of God (Piscat., Usteri. [Alford: the true notion of Him as the Creator]). 3. θεοῦ is genit. subject.; the truth or reality of God, the true Divine essence, according to the analogy τὴν δόξαν τοῦ θεοῦ (Tholuck, Meyer). Tholuck (with Theophylact, Luther, and others) takes it exactly as ἀληθινὸς θεός [and ψεῦδος for οἱ ψευδεῖς θεοί. So also Hodge: a periphrase for the true God—P. S.]. The δόξα of God is God’s revelation in glory, and so is God’s truth the φανέρωσις (see Romans 1:19) of his essential truth in the truthful relations of creation. The name of God is the revelation of His nature; not His nature in and of itself. But this revelation divides itself into the δόξα when we have in view the whole majesty of His name, and into the ἀλήθεια when we look at the real harmony of its antitheses. They have forsaken the general manifestation of this truth of God. They have, indeed, utterly squandered it for the gain of a mere lie—for the lying idols. [ψεῦδος = שֶׁקֶר, is used emphatically for idols in the Scriptures; Jeremiah 13:25; Jeremiah 16:19; Isaiah 28:15; Isaiah 44:20; because the heathen gods do not even exist, and yet they are worshipped in the place of the only true God, who is the Cause of all existence, and the Author of all truth.—P. S.] Idols are lies not simply as dii imaginarii (Grotius). They are embodied lies. Man must make them, and they pretend to represent Him who made man (Isaiah 40:19-20). They have mouths, but they speak not; eyes have they, but they see not (Psalms 115:5; Psalms 135:16; Wis 15:15). The worshipper of idols has a dark consciousness of this contradiction. Even his worship is mendacious. Tholuck quotes Philo, De Vita Mosis, i. 3 [where it is said of the Israelites who had made the golden calf], Moses wondered ὅσον ψεῦδος ̓ ὅσης . Comp. also Isaiah 44:20; Jeremiah 3:10; Jeremiah 13:25; Jeremiah 16:19.—And worshipped. Σεβάζομαι [only once in the N. T.] denotes religious reverence in general; λατρεύω denotes worship [with sacrifice, and other acts and rites]. The conception of the σεβ. passes from fear and reverence to worship. Of kindred but not of identical character is the distinction of Theophylact, and others: internal and external worship.—The creature rather than the Creator. [κτίσει, any created being or thing, belongs to both verbs, but is conformed to λατρεύω as the nearest, while σεβάζομαι would require the accusative.—P. S.] The παρὰ τὸν κτίσαντα has been interpreted in three ways: 1. More than the Creator [in the relative sense], (Vulgate, Erasmus, Luther [E. V., Grotius], and others); 2. against the Creator [contra creatorem; comp. παρὰ φύσιν, Romans 1:26], (Hammond, Fritzsche, and others); 3. In the sense of comparison [and exclusion], prœ creators, prœterito, or relicto creatore (Hilarius, Theophylact, Beza, Tholuck, Meyer [Olshausen, De Wette, Philippi, Alford, Wordsworth, Hodge], and others). The third explanation is correct in the sense that it includes the second: Passing by one with the disregard and rejection of the same (see Luke 18:14). The παρὰ φύσιν in Romans 1:26 perfectly corresponds to this rendering. In both cases, the statement must not be understood absolutely; otherwise heathendom would have been the negation of all religion, and unnatural lust the negation of all propagation of the human race. It denotes the outbreaking sovereignty of a religious vice, which is completed in a sensual one. [Wordsworth derives from this text an argument against the Arians, who assert Christ to be a creature, and yet profess to worship Him; and against those who pay religious worship to any creature, since no one is to be worshipped, according to the Scriptures, who is not God by nature, and since there is no middle between Creator and creature.—P. S.]
Who is blessed forever. Tholuck: “The doxology is added to the name of God by Jews and Mohammedans when they must state something that is unworthy of Him, as though the writer would remove all suspicion of any share in the statement,” &c. It is more natural to seek the explanation of this custom in the indignation of religious feeling, and in its confidence that God is exalted above the profanation of His name.112 Tholuck informs us that an Arabian writer added, after every heresy which he mentioned: “God is exalted above all that they say!” The Apostle’s expression, at all events, must not be regarded as a mere form, but as candid emotion (Meyer); which yet does not exclude the thought indicated above (Chrysostom, Grotius).—εὐλογητός, בָּרדּךְ.113 Who is blessed, with reference to all future eternity, is likewise an expression of the confident expectation that he shall be blessed (Meyer therefore rejects, without good reason, the explanation of Fritzsche: celebrandus).
Romans 1:26. For this cause God gave them up. The διὰ τοῦτο refers specifically to Romans 1:25, and takes its place with the διό of Romans 1:24 and the διότι of Romans 1:21 as a subdivision under Romans 1:18.
Unto shameful passions. The ἀτιμία was already in Romans 1:24, but now it becomes a passion. Meyer: πάθη ., genit. qual. Since whoredom is also a shameful passion, the substantive must be retained: Passions of the shameful and degraded condition. There was first a departure from honor to simple dishonor; then still further downward, to a passionate course of dishonor, which might almost be described as passion for vileness. The unnatural sins of lust rest upon unnatural passions, and these spring from the root of the unnatural, lying deification of creatures and images. Man is for God in a religious sense, as the man and woman are for each other in a moral point of view: this is the natural condition, the truth of the relations (Ephesians 5:25). Therefore the perversion of nature, unnaturalness, or the lie of the service of the creature and of the idols, is punished by the perversion of nature, unnaturalness, or the lie of sexual gratification. Tholuck praises the modest reticence of the Apostle in the expression, although his expression is clear enough. He also says: “The self-degradation and self-condemnation of man appears most strikingly in the peculiarly (?) Grecian sin of pederasty (ἀρσενοκοῖται, 1 Corinthians 6:9), which, at the time when Paul wrote, was largely practised also in Rome. After Xenophon, De Lacedœm. Republ., ii. 14, has mentioned that this vice was forbidden by Lycurgus, he adds, that this is not believed by some, ἐν πολλαῖς γὰρ τῶν πὁλεων οἱ νὸμοι οὐκ ἐναντιόῦνται ταῖς πρὸς τοὺς παῖδας ἐπιθυμίαις. Even the most distinguished men have incurred grave suspicions in this matter, some justly, others unjustly. Comp. Gessner, De pœderastia Socratis in vet. diss. Gott. ii. p. 125. Seneca, a contemporary of Paul, writes in Rome, Ep. 35: Transeo puerorum infelicium greges, quos post transacta convivia aliœ cubiculi contumeliœ exspectant; transeo agmina exoletorum per nationes coloresque descripta. The most hideous and yet the most accurate picture of Roman licentiousness at that time, is given by Petronius, a contemporary of the Apostle. Even women (called tribades) committed the same Outrage, which was called by a smoother term after a famous predecessor in the crime, “Sapphic Love.” [Seneca writes, Ep. 95: “Libidine vero ne maribus quidem cedunt, pati natœ; dii illas deœque male perdant, adeo perversum commentœ genus impudicitœ viros ineunt.”]114
For even their women. Θήλειαι and ἄρσενες, instead of γυναῖκες and ἄνδρες, on account of the sexual reference. Reiche says erroneously: In a contemptuous sense, for description of the bestial. The expression χρῆσις is euphemistic for usus venereus, and therefore we must not supply τοῦ ἄρσενος, or τῆς θηλείας (Fritzsche). Tholuck explains thus: The Apostle places the female sex first, because the abomination of the crime is most horrible in that sex, whose noblest ornament is modesty (1 Timothy 2:9) [similarly Hodge]. It may be observed, on the contrary, that the Apostle here generally passes from the less to the more abominable crime. He probably alludes, in Romans 1:26 (as Tholuck remarks), to the debauchery of the tribades (frictrices, “the Lesbian vice,” λεσβιάζειν), where women commit abuses with women, but perhaps he included the more secret sin of onanism. This appears from the antithesis in Romans 1:27 : Men with men. This sin is referred in a two-fold way to the deification of the creature: by μετήλλαξαν and by παρὰ φύσιν.
Romans 1:27. And likewise also the men. The construction indicates that the unnatural burning (ἐκκαὶεσθαι = ποροῦσθαι, 1 Corinthians 7:9) was inflamed by unnatural excitement in the shameful act itself. The κατεργαζόμενοι means the complete perpetration of the abomination.115—Receiving in themselves the due reward of their error. According to Ammon and others, the destructive consequences of lust. According to Tholuck, the self-degradation. According to Meyer, the designated lusts themselves, as the punishment for the πλάνη, Romans 1:21-23. [Alford and Hodge likewise refer the πλάνη to their departure from God into idolatry.—P. S.]. But the πλάνη is certainly the godless aberration into unnaturalness—that is, into a lie against nature, and we must think of the punishment as proportionate thereto; therefore not only the absolute self-deception, but also the shameful perversion of the sexual character (a man in a horrible way “the woman of all men”). Therefore, in themselves, not through themselves (Tholuck); nor “reciprocally” (Meyer). Meyer erroneously excludes here from consideration the destructive results of debauchery.
Romans 1:28. And as they did not deem it worth while [οὐκ ἐδοκίμασαν] to retain God. A further and more general development of moral corruption, based on a further and more general unfolding of religious corruption. Καθώς. The comparison is at the same time causal—which Tholuck denies. On the correspondence between the darkening of knowledge and practical corruption, see the quotations from the heathen writers, in Tholuck [and Wetstein. Cicero says, De Nat. Deor. Romans 12:0 : “Haud scio, an, pietate adversus Deos sublata, fides etiam et societas, et una excellentissima virtus justitia tollatur.” The assertion of modern deists, rationalists, and infidels, that morality is independent of religion, is an idle delusion. The wise heathen knew better. Religion is the backbone of morality, and irreligion the mother of immorality and vice. He who is most true to God, is most true to himself and his fellow-men; and he who denies God, is not likely to recognize any binding obligation to man, except on purely selfish and utilitarian grounds. Immoral religionists and moral irreligionists are exceptions, and confirm the rule.—P. S.] The δοκιμάζειν = δόκιμον ἡγεῖσθαι [here, to think it worthy, or worth while; comp. 1 Thessalonians 2:4; 1 Corinthians 16:3].—To retain God in (their) knowledge [ἐν ἐπιγνώσει, Erkenntniss]. Tholuck makes the ἐπιγινώσκειν equal to the γινώσκειν in Romans 1:21. But here the question is concerning per ception—that is, the reception of knowledge into the inner life. Besides, the ἔχεσν ἐν ἐπιγνώσκει is stronger than γινωσκειν. Here again the punishment corresponds to the guilt; therefore the ἀδόκιμος νοῦς is not a mind incapable of judgment or discernment [judicii expers], (Beza, Piscat. [Bengel]), but the adjective is passive, according to the use of language: worthless (good-for-nothing) mind. [δόκιμος, from δέχομαι, receivable, worthy of reception; ἀδόκιμος, worthless, worthy of rejection. The heathen did not lose the moral faculty of discerning between right and wrong, good and bad, but in spite of it they practised the bad, and encouraged its practice in others (Romans 1:32), thereby increasing their guilt. “It is the video meliora proboque, which makes the detoriora sequor so peculiarly criminal.”—P. S.] The οὐκ ἐδοκίμασαν and ἀδόκιμος νοῦς are a paronomasy. The νοῦς is the perceiving and deciding intelligence, and mediates all the impressions for moral self-determination and action.—Things which are not becoming. The μὴ καθήκοντα, in the technical sense of the philosophical schools, are things contrary to duty, or immoral; but in a more popular sense here, they are an expression of moral abhorrence.
Romans 1:29-32. Being filled with all unrighteousness. Tholuck: “The accusatives πεπληρωμένους, μεστούς, &c., depend on ποιεῖν, as Erasmus has already remarked: because their thoughts are so impure, they also commit unbecoming things.” [Some connect the following accusatives with αὐτούς of the preceding verse, so as to express the state in which, and the reason why, God abandoned them; but it is better to connect them with the subject of ποιεῖν, understood, so as to express the consequences of such abandonment, and the various forms of τὰ μὴ καθήκοντα which they practised, πᾶσα , all manner of immorality, is general; the following terms are specifications. Similar catalogues of sins: 2 Corinthians 12:20; Galatians 5:19-21; Ephesians 5:3; 1Ti 1:9-10; 2 Timothy 3:2-4.—P. S.] De Wette remarks that the following catalogue of sins, like a similar one in Galatians 5:19, is unsystematic; though ἀδικία stands first, as the principal, conception. Likewise Tholuck (against Bengel’s and Glöckler’s attempts at classification) maintains that the Apostle states a “συναθροισμός [rhetorical accumulation] of manifestations of sin,” and cites the paronomasies φθόνου and φόνου, ἀσυνέτους and ἀσυνθέτους. But the paronomasies are no proof, and so we attempt the following construction:116
I. Vices. The chief vice, ἀδικία, unrighteousness, at the head. This is divided into πονηρία, malice [disposition to inflict evil], wickedness—bold form; and into πλεονεξὶα, avarice, covetousness; κακία, badness, malice—pusillanimous form. On the addition of πορνεία, to the above, see Textual Note [117]. The expression πεπληρωμένους means, that every wicked person had not merely one crime. By the vices are here meant permanent and cold traits of character, in distinction from deeds of impulse, in which the guilty persons appear as μεστοί, full and drunken.
II. Evil deeds, or criminal acts. The chief sin, φθόνος, envy, at the head; divided into φόνος, murder; ἔρις, strife, contention; δόλος, deceit, or fraud; κακοήθεια, malignity, treacherous conduct. The chief source is φθόνος; but in all these evil deeds they appear as drunken.
III. Wicked characters according to their deeds. ψιθυρισταί, whisperers, backbiters [one who slanders secretly]; καταλάλοι, slanderers, calumniators; θεοστυγεῖς, haters of God, despisers of God, scorning God (Gottverächter). Tholuck: Promethean characters. In the classic literature, and especially the tragic department, the word occurs only in the passive meaning; hated by God, hateful to God [see the quotations of Meyer in loc.]; but the context plainly declares in favor of the active rendering, which has been adopted by most commentators from Theodoret down to the present, and which alone is in harmony with the Christian spirit. Classic usage also favors the accessory thought: ungodly, wicked. ὑβρισταί, insolent, overbearing, those who perpetrate criminal ὕβρις; ὑπερήφανοι, those who are proud, self-conceited, those who conduct themselves arrogantly above others; ἀλαζόνες, boasters, who do not design, like the previous class, to crush others by the force of their greatness, but make a lying show of it; ἐφευρεταὶ κακῶν, inventors of villanies, or crimes, swindlers, and adventurers; γονεῦσιν , disobedient to parents; apostasy from the piety and affection due to parents is a fountain of corruption (see Malachi 4:6; Luke 1:17). [Hodge: “That such should be included in this fearful list, shows the light in which filial disobedience is regarded by the sacred writers.”—P. S.]
IV. (Romans 1:31.) Wicked characters according to their sentiments, in leading psychological types. ἀσύνετοι, without understanding [or insight into moral things, blinded, besotted]; corrupted intelligence; ἀσύνθετοι, according to Philippi, and others, quarrelsome, implacable; according to Meyer, covenant-breakers [perfidious]; we construe the expression psychologically: unstable, unreliable—corrupted will. ἄστοργοι, destitute of affection, heartless; wanting even in natural feeling and natural love—corrupted feeling. (ἄσπονθοι, implacable, irreconcilable. Probably an insertion). ἀνελεήμονες, unmerciful, without pity and compassion: a totally corrupted state of feeling (Matthew 25:31 ff.).
V. Wicked maxims (Romans 1:32). Demoniacal pleasure in wickedness on the part of those who are conscious of the deadly guilt of sin (for example, heathen philosophers, magistrates, judges, etc.); and who not only commit sins worthy of death, but also approve them in others by their endorsement and principles.—The οἳτινες announces a new element, a new degree. This degree was of course not reached or thoroughly accomplished by all, but the generality were guilty to this degree—a fact which is shown by the crucifixion of Christ. Grotius has alluded to the defence of many crimes by the philosophers [e.g., the defence of hatred, revenge, even pederasty and sodomy]; and Heumann [and Ewald] to lax criminal justice. The δικαίωμα of God in the knowledge of the Gentiles is in part the institution of law and in part God’s punitive dealing, so far as the latter is referred by the heathen conscience to Divine justice. [δικαὶωμα (comp. Luke 1:6; Romans 2:26; Romans 8:4; Revelation 15:5, in the Septuagint often for the Hebrew מִצְוָה הֻקָּה חֹק) is here the righteous decree or sentence of God as the Lawgiver and Judge, declaring what is right and wrong, and connecting death with sin, and life with righteousness. Meyer: Rechtsbestimmung; Lange: Rechtsurtheil; Alford: sentence; Wordsworth and Hodge: decree. This decree is inscribed not only on the revealed law of the Old Testament, but also on the conscience or moral sense of every man. The latter is here meant.—P. S.]
Romans 1:32. Are worthy of death. Photius: According to the Mosaic law. The Socinians: Civil punishment by death. Meyer: Eternal death, by which Paul has in mind the heathen notion of the state of punishment in Hades.118 Fritzsche and De Wette: The misery of sin, and similar results. But the meaning is the general idea of death in the Gentile consciousness of guilt, as the punishment of the most varied forms of sin. [Alford: θάνατος , a general term for the fatal consequence of sin; that such courses lead to ruin. Hodge: All evil inflicted for the satisfaction of justice. This passage shows that the judicial abandonment of God does not destroy the free agency or responsibility of men. The stream which carries them away is not without, but within; it is their own corrupt nature. Umbreit: Life and death are ever set over against one another in the Old and New Testaments, the one as including all good, the other as all evil.—P. S.] The πράσσειν is a stronger expression. [It brings out more clearly the idea of repetition and continuance of action than ποιεῖν.—P. S.]
The progress is very apparent from wicked passions to wicked acts; from these, to wicked characters, according to the positive methods of action; from these, to wicked characters in whom the inclination for what is good is extinguished; and from these, finally, to wicked maxims. This progress is also expressed by the change of the forms. The same sins are not described throughout these different categories. According to the fundamental conception of unrighteousness, the first category may be regarded as the general category. The second describes sins against our fellow-men in their individual relation; the third, those against human society; the fourth passes on to settle the character of self-corruption in its psychological forms of sentiment; and the fifth, to the complete demoniacal consciousness and approval of sin.
[This dark picture of heathen corruption (which does not exclude honorable exceptions; comp. Romans 2:14; Romans 2:26) is by no means overdrawn, and can be fully verified by testimonies from the first writers of the classical age of ancient Greece and Rome, such as Thucydides (3:82–84, on the moral state of Greece during the Peloponnesian war), Aristophanes, Horace, Catullus, Juvenal, Persius, Sallust, Seneca, Tacitus, Suetonius. Comp. my Church History, vol. i. p. 302 ff., and the works quoted there. I shall only refer to a passage from Seneca, the philosopher and contemporary of Paul, De Ira, ii. Romans 8 : “All is full of crime and vice; there is more committed than can be healed by punishment. A monstrous prize contest of wickedness is going on. The desire to sin increases, and shame decreases day by day. … Vice is no longer practised secretly, but in open view. Vileness gains in every street and in every breast to such an extent, that innocence has become not only rare, but has ceased to exist.” It is true, the history of Christian countries often presents a similar picture of moral corruption (with the exception of those unnatural vices described Romans 1:26-27, which have almost disappeared, or greatly diminished within the pale of Christian civilization). Think of the state of the Latin Christians in the fifth century as described by the priest Salvianus, who charges them with every vice, and puts them, in a moral point of view, beneath the barbarians; of the condition of Catholic France under Louis 14. and 15.; and of the large capitals of Europe and America in our days. Yea, in some respects the most diabolical forms of sin are brought out by contrast under the Christian dispensation, and apostasy from Christianity is worse than heathenism (comp. 2 Timothy 3:1-9). But there remains this radical difference: the heathen corruptions were produced and sanctioned by the heathen mythology and idolatry; while Christian nations are corrupt in spite of and in direct opposition to Christianity, which raises the highest standard of virtue, and acts continually on the world as a purifying and sanctifying power.—P. S.]
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. The revelation of God’s salvation is at the same time a revelation of God’s wrath. One conception is eclipsed by the other. It is a vain delusion to imagine that we can separate the doctrine of redemption from that of wrath. The conception of wrath is the conception of the absolute and personal energy of the Divine government of love in punitive righteousness. Redeeming love is the absolute and personal energy of Divine righteousness in the saving exercise of love. Can a soul enjoy the experience of salvation by faith, without passing through an internal judgment, and feeling of Divine displeasure? For further information, see the Exeg. Notes; Tholuck, pp. 56, 57; Meyer, p. 49; the article Zorn Gottes, in Herzog’s Realencyklopädie [vol. xviii. p. 657 ff.], together with the literature on the subject enumerated there [especially the monograph on the Wrath of God by Ferdinand Weber, with prolegomena on the doctrine of the atonement by Franz Delitzsch, Erlangen, 1862.—P. S.]
2. The essential characteristic of all forms of unbelief consists in men’s holding back or hindering the truth in unrighteousness. “Modern culture” attempts to separate the ideas ἀπιστία and ἀπείθεια utterly from each other. But the biblical view will not allow such a separation. Unbelief is misconduct toward the moral claims within the horizon of the internal life. This misconduct has its degrees. The germ and principle is sin as transgression (παράβασις) in general. The definite determination is apostasy, which manifests itself also as opposition to Divine truth. Therefore the two fundamental forms of specific unbelief are: apostasy, and hostile attack. The third degree is hardness of heart. But the measure of power in human obstacles to the revelation of God is related to the power of Divine reaction against these obstacles, just as the power of man (as weakness) is related to the omnipotence of God.
3. The idea of the revelation of God by nature pervades the entire Bible. See Ps. 8., 19., 104., and others; Isaiah 40:0. According to Schneckenburger (Beiträge zur Einleitung in’s Neue Testament, 10th essay: Paul’s Natural Theology, and its Sources), Philo was Paul’s source. See thereon, Tholuck, p. 64. The pamphlet of Hebart also belongs here: Die natürliche Theologie des Apostels Paulus (Nürnb., 1860); likewise Zöckler’s Theologia Naturalis, or Entwurf einer systematischen Naturtheologie. [Frankfurt a. M., 1860, 2 vols.] The latter has viewed natural theology in a more primitive than usual sense. We must bear in mind that natural theology, since the revelation of salvation, has assumed a different form from what it had before the revelation of salvation, and especially as the basis of the original revelation. The symbolical natural religion which prevailed down to Abraham is distinguished from the revelation of salvation herein, that God revealed Himself there specially by symbols and signs, but here by the Word. See also the article Raymond of Sabunde, in Herzog’s Real-encyklopädie [vol. xii. p. 571].
4. According to Paul, as according to all the Holy Scriptures, humanity has fallen from its original ideal height; but according to the majority of those who set themselves up as the advocates of “modern culture,” it has risen from a rough, beast-like state. Wherefore Reiche also (p. 157) has expressed the opinion that the Apostle has here expressed only a cotemporary opinion of the Jews. The testimony of history is against the view of “modern culture.” It proves the gradual decay of the Hindus, the Arabians, the Ethiopians, the Indians, and, finally, even of the Greco-Roman world, with all its relative glory.
5. It is improper to regard the description of the Apostle as a description only of the corruption of the heathen world. It shows us first how the Gentile world arose, and then what became of it; but it does not commence with a Gentile world. Therefore it goes back, fundamentally, to the genesis of sin in the fall of man; but then it shows how the fall of man in its second form (with the self-boasting of man after the flood) became the genesis of real heathendom. The corruption arose from the original symbolical religion which prevailed from Adam down to Abraham. For men magnified the simple symbolism of nature—which God had given—by their own arbitrary symbolizations, and then mythicized the symbols; that is, they deified them. Thus mythology arose from symbolism, and idolatry and then image-worship arose from the symbolical view of nature. Recent research has commenced to exhume from the ruins of myths the gold of the original symbolism. Comp. my treatise On the Relation between General and Ecclesiastical Symbolism, in the Deutsche Zeitschrift für Christliche Wissenschaft, &c ., 1855, Nos. 4–6; and the recent writings on heathendom by Wuttke [Geschichte des Heidenthums, 1852 ff.], Döllinger [Heidenthum und Judenthum, 1851], Stiefelhagen, Lasaulx, and others. [Schelling, Philosophie der Mythologie, 1857; Fabri, Die Entstehung des Heidenthums, 1859; Nägelsbach on the Homeric, and Post-Homeric Theology, 1840, 1857; Gladstone, Studies on Homer, 1858; W. S. Tyler, The Theology of the Greek Poets, 1867.—P. S.]
6. The description of the original form of natural religion does not justify the conclusion that the revelation of God in Christ would not have occurred under the presupposition of human righteousness. But it leads us to conclude that the progress from the one to the other would have been effected in the form of a historical continuity.7. The explanation of Gentile corruption from the great peccatum omissionis. “They have not honored and thanked God” (Romans 1:21); this is a penetrating glance which sheds its light also upon the first fall, as well as upon every genesis of sin. On the significance of this passage for the whole Epistle, see the Introduction and the Exeg. Notes.
8. God’s positive government, which impels evil through trial and temptation into the process of development from righteous judgment (sin punished by sin) and to righteous judgment (Romans 11:32), corresponds with God’s negative abandonment, in which the first ground for the punishment is revealed, not only because God, as the Holy One, must withdraw His Spirit from the consciousness of sinful man, but also because He regards man in his freedom, and leaves him to its action (see my Positive Dogmatics, p. 468).
[Sin punished by sin. The Rabbinical tract, Pirke Aboth, 100:2, Romans 1:1, says: “Festina ad prœceptum leve tanquam ad grave, et fuge transgressionem; prœceptum enim trahit prœceptum, et transgressio transgressionem; quia merces prœcepti prœceptum est, et transgressionis transgressio.’ Seneca (Ep. 16): “The first and greatest punishment of any commission of sin is the sin itself which is committed.” De Wette, ad Romans 1:24 : “This view (that sin is punished by sin) is no mere Jewish doctrine, but it is universally true from the absolute standpoint of religion.” Schiller:
“This is the very curse of evil deed,That of new evil it becomes the seed.”
But this judicial punishment of sin with sin does not make God the author of sin in any sense. Dr. South (Serm, ii. on 2 Thessalonians 2:11) says: “God may make one sin the punishment of another, though it still is to be remembered that it is one thing for God to give a man over to sin, and quite another for God to cause him to sin; the former importing in it no more than God’s providential ordering of a man’s circumstances, so that he shall find no check or hinderance in the course of his sin; but the latter implying also a positive efficiency toward the commission or production of a sinful act; which God never does, nor can do; but the other He both may, and, in a judicial way, very often does. … In all which God is not at all the author of sin, but only pursues the great work and righteous ends of His providence, in disposing of things or objects in themselves good or indifferent, toward the compassing of the same; howbeit, through the poison of men’s vicious affections, they are turned into the opportunities and fuel of sin, and made the occasion of their final destruction; Romans 9:17; Romans 9:22.” Dr. Hodge: “God often punishes one sin by abandoning the sinner to the commission of others. Paul repeats this idea three times, Romans 1:24; Romans 1:26; Romans 1:28. This judicial abandonment is consistent with the holiness of God and the free agency of man. God does not impel or entice to evil. He ceases to restrain. He says of the sinner, Let him alone; Romans 1:24-28.”—P. S.]
9. The deep truth in the proof of the connection between religious and moral corruption.10. The intimate connection between the denial of the δόξα of God and the degradation of the δόξα of the human form by whoredom, and between the denial of the truth of God and the degradation of the true relations of human nature, as represented by Paul, has not been properly observed. See Exeg. Notes.
11. Other enumerations of sins and crimes in the Scriptures: see 2 Corinthians 12:20; Galatians 5:19; Eph 5:3; 1 Timothy 1:9; 2 Timothy 3:2.
12. Sin reaches its climax in wicked maxims and principles. They are demoniacal in their character, and the intellectual side of the service of the devil, which may be known not only in its gross forms, but also in the subtle form of cowardly idolatry of what is base, and which in this shape is widely diffused. [Yet, even in the most reprobate sinner, the voice of conscience cannot be entirely extinguished (“knowing the judgment of God, “ Romans 1:32). It makes him uneasy and miserable on earth, and will be his condemnation in the other world.—P. S.]
13. While the Apostle has here described the dark side of heathendom, the second chapter shows that the whole of heathendom does not appear to him under this dark aspect. In the first chapter he describes the prevailing Antinomian tendency of heathendom, in opposition to the prevailing legalistic tendency of Judaism.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
In what does the beginning of all the real sinful corruption of the world, and of the Gentiles in particular, consist? 1. In the neglect of the general manifestations of God by creation; 2. in neglect to worship God by praise and thanksgiving.—Against what will God’s wrath be sent from heaven? 1. Against all ungodliness; 2. against all unrighteousness of men who hold back the truth in unrighteousness (Romans 1:18).
The revelation of wrath, and the revelation of love, as they, 1. Are opposed to each other; 2. are closely connected with each other.—The revelation of God in nature is a revelation of His invisible nature—that is, of His eternal power and Godhead (Romans 1:19-20).—He who knows God, should praise and thank Him.—The knowledge and worship of God.—Neglect of the worship of God leads to obscuring the knowledge of God (Romans 1:21).
Luther: Where there is no faith, reason falls from one depth to another, until it is totally blinded in its speculations, as is the case with all self-conceited and heated brains (Romans 1:21).
Starke: Even after the fall, every man has a natural knowledge of the nature and works of God; yet this is not sufficient to lead him to salvation (Romans 1:19).—God esteems our knowledge according to the means we have of obtaining it. Thus He demands more knowledge from the Jews than from the Gentiles, and still more from us Christians (Romans 1:21).—As God is a living God, so must our knowledge of Him also be vital, and express itself in praise and thanks (Romans 1:21).—Langii Op. Bibl.: Whoever denies the wrath of God, and describes God alone according to mere love, thereby obscures also the greatness of the grace and love of God, and leads others to despise this grace and love (Romans 1:18).—Hedinger: God does not leave Himself without a witness among the heathen. All creatures eloquently testify to His might and wisdom (Romans 1:20). From Quesnel: Hugo de Arca: Omnis creatura tribus vocibus nobis loquitur: prima est famulantis, accipe beneficium; secunda admonentis, redde debitum servitium; tertia comminantis, fuge supplicium (Romans 1:20).
Bengel: Whatever is under heaven, and not under the gospel, is under the wrath (Romans 1:18).—The heart of man conforms to its thoughts (Romans 1:21).
Gerlach: The sin against which God’s wrath is directed shows itself in the double form of ungodliness and unrighteousness, according as man sins more directly against God, or against himself and his neighbor (Romans 1:18).—As soon as man ceases to direct himself to the holy and gracious God, he worships only God’s power and beauty (?), and makes Nature his God (Romans 1:21).
Heubner: The denial of God can never be excused, for man can know God (Romans 1:19).
The Pericope for the 11th Sunday after Trinity (Romans 1:16-20).—Heubner: The joy of the Christian in the confession of faith: 1. Disposition; 2. necessity; 3. how are we fitted for it?—How shall we learn to estimate properly the value of the gospel? 1. When we experience its power in our own hearts; 2. when we perceive properly the wretched condition of the human race without Christianity—its religious as well as its moral condition; 3. when we learn the insufficiency of natural religion, which reveals God’s existence and power, but not His mercy toward sinners.—The relation of natural and revealed religion: 1. Harmony; 2. difference; 3. inferences.
Lange: For the wrath of God. Wrath a proof of the gospel: 1. Of its necessity; 2. its truth; 3. its glory.—On the difference between the knowledge and perception of God.—The general manifestation of God, or the relation between natural religion and revealed religion in its narrower sense.—The beginning of all sin is always at bottom a sin of neglect.—The two sides of piety: to praise God, and to thank Him.
[Tillotson: Romans 1:18-19. If it were only the wrath and displeasure of men that the sinner were exposed to, there might be reason enough for fear; but the wrath and vengeance of men bears no comparison with the wrath of God. Their arm is short, and their power small; they may shoot their most poisonous arrows at us, and at last kill us; but they cannot pursue us into the other world. But the wrath of God has none of these limits.—The fear of God’s wrath: Men may harden their foreheads, and conquer all sense of shame; but they cannot perfectly stifle and subdue their fears. They can hardly so extinguish the fear of hell, but that some sparks of that fire will ever and anon be flying about in their consciences.—South (sermon on Natural Religion without Revelation, sufficient to render a sinner inexcusable (Romans 1:20): I heartily wish that all young persons would lodge this one observation deep in their minds: That God and nature have joined wisdom and virtue by such a near cognation, or, rather, such an inseparable connection, that a wise, prudent, and honorable old age is seldom or never found but as the reward and effect of a sober, virtuous, and well-spent youth.—Scott: Even to this day, if any nations seem to be sunk into so entire a stupidity as to have no notions of a God remaining among them, this still more clearly proves, not man’s want of rational powers, but his carnal enmity to God and religion, through which he becomes more and more the besotted and blind slave of Satan.—Clarke: Paul’s purpose is to show: 1. That all the heathen nations are utterly corrupt, and deserving of punishment; 2. that the Jews, notwithstanding the greatness of their privilege, were no better than the Gentiles.—Hodge: The folly and darkness of which the Apostle here speaks are expressive of want of Divine knowledge, which is but the effect and cause of moral depravity.—J. F. H.]
Abandonment of the Gentile world: 1. Why did God abandon them? a. Because they changed His glory into something transitory and corruptible; b. His truth into a lie. 2. In what respect did God abandon them? a. In pollution of the flesh and spirit; b. in utter hardness of heart (Romans 1:22-32).—How dreadful to be abandoned by God! Because 1. His Spirit departs; 2. sin becomes punishment.—Has Paul described the moral pollution of the Gentile world in too dark colors? No. For what the Apostle says is corroborated by witnesses from its very midst. 1. Of ancient times (Aristophanes, Horace, Juvenal); 2. of the present day (modern Hindu literature, &c).—He who would describe sin, must be strengthened by looking up to God (Romans 1:25).—The heathen world of the present day is the same as that at the time of Paul, and therefore can be converted only by the same means (the gospel).—He who knows how to do good, and does not do it, sins (Romans 1:32).—What men are hardened? Those who (1) know God’s righteousness, (2) yet do what deserves death, and (3) are not contented to have pleasure in those who do it (Romans 1:32).
Luther: The real Epicureans are those who live as if there were no God; who boast much, and would have others boast of them that they are something extraordinary, when they really are not (Romans 1:30).
Starke: It was a crime of pride, when they said, We are not so foolish (Romans 1:22).—To consider one’s self wise and shrewd, and yet to possess foolish principia, is the greatest folly; especially when exhibited by the world’s wise men in published writings (Romans 1:22).—The wisest and most learned are often also the most perverted.—It is absolutely unreasonable to worship God under the image of a beast; for what king, prince, and honorable man would permit himself to be represented in the form of an ox, or hog (!). How much less can God be treated thus (Romans 1:23).—He who forsakes God, will be forsaken also by God (Romans 1:24).—The most direct path to atheism, is to regard God unworthy to be known (Romans 1:28).—Goodness goes gently, but evil goes violently, and will be host in the house. It foams and ferments like new wine (Romans 1:29).—Hedinger: Sin is sometimes the punishment of sin (Romans 1:24).—Osiander Bibl.: Teachers and preachers must be careful to speak of sins against God and nature in such a way that those sins be prevented and guarded against, rather than learned and committed (Romans 1:26).—Cramer: Although the neglect to know God is regarded by the world as no sin, or, if a sin, the least of all, it is really a fountain of all sin, and, finally, of all the penalties consequent upon sin (Romans 1:28).
Heubner: The ruin of the Gentile world is a warning for Christians: Apostasy from the word of God induces similar aberrations at all times—a new though more refined heathenism (Romans 1:22).—God forsakes only those who will not hear Him (Romans 1:24).—A wicked state of heart leads to absolute pleasure in wickedness itself (Romans 1:32).
Besser: Unnaturalness follows from the deification of nature (Romans 1:27).
Lange: The connection between religious and moral ruin is exhibited also in the world at the present time.—The barbarous disregard of the human person in all sexual sins, as often concealed beneath the most refined masks of culture, is closely connected with the irreligious disregard of the personality of God and man.—A fundamental sanctification of the sexual relations can arise only from the vital knowledge of the dignity of personal life.—Sin taking on the form of the devilish nature in wicked maxims.
[Scott: Religion moderates and regulates natural affections, but excess of depravity extinguishes them. It is a proof of more determined impiety for men to take pleasure in the company of the enemies of God, than to commit many crimes whilst the heart and conscience protest against them.—Clarke: We see what the world was, and what it would ever have been, had not God sent a divine revelation of His will, and established a public ministry to proclaim it. Were man left to the power and influence of his fallen nature, he would always be what the Apostle here describes as the condition of the Gentile world.—Comprehensive Comm.: No wickedness so heinous, but a reprobate mind will comply.
Hodge (condensed): 1. It is the very nature of sin to be inexcusable, and worthy of punishment; 2. as the works of God reveal His eternal power and Godhead, we should accustom ourselves to see in them the manifestations of His perfections; 3. the human intellect is as erring as the human heart; 4. as the light of nature is insufficient to lead the heathen to God and holiness, it is our obvious and urgent duty to send them the light of the Bible; 5. sins of uncleanness are peculiarly debasing and demoralizing; 6. to take pleasure in those who do good, makes us better; as to delight in those who do evil, is the surest way to become even more degraded than they are themselves.—Compare two sermons by R. South on The Heinous Guilt of Taking Pleasure in Other Men’s Sins; and sermon by C. Girdlestone on Pleasure in the Sight of Sin (Parochial Sermons).—J. F. H.]
[Romans 1:32. South (Sermon on the text): That sin (which sympathizes with and patronizes the sinner) is a pitch beyond all other sins, and such an one as must nonplus the devil himself to proceed farther. It is the very extremity, the fulness, and the concluding period of sin; the last line and finishing stroke of the devil’s image, drawn upon the soul of man.—P. S.]
Third Section.—Gradual transition from the corruption of the Gentiles to that of the Jews. The universality of the corruption, and, with the universality of guilt, that worst corruption, the judgment of others. This judgment is likewise judged by the continuance of a universal antagonism, within the universal corruption, between pious, earnest men, and obstinate rebels, both among Gentiles and Jews, in view of the righteous, impartial government of God by virtue of the continuance of the universal legislation of God in the conscience. The revelation of the antagonism of loyal Gentiles and disloyal Jews on the day of the proclamation of the gospel.
Footnotes:
Romans 1:18; Romans 1:18.—[Or hinder. So Lange and Meyer: aufhalten. This is the meaning of κατέχειν here, as in 2 Thessalonians 2:6-7; Luke 4:42. Comp. the Exeg. Notes, as also the note of Alford in loc.—P. S.]
Romans 1:19; Romans 1:19.—[διότι, contracted from δἰ ὅ τι, means (like διό) originally, propter quod, quam ob rem, qua re, on account of which, wherefore, and draws an inference from the preceding sentence; but in the N. T. it is always, and in the classics occasionally, used in the sense of διὰ τοῦτο ὂτι, propterea quod, quia, because that, because, and assigns a reason for a preceding assertion, like γάρ, for. It may here give the reason why the wrath of God is revealed (Meyer), or it may explain the words τῶν τὴν ὰλ. … κατεχόντων (De Wette, Tholuck, Alford). See Exeg. Notes. Lachmann, Tischendorf, Meyer, Alford separate διότι from Romans 1:18 simply by a comma; Tholuck, Fritzsche, Theile, Philippi, by a period.—P. S.]
Romans 1:19; Romans 1:19.—[τὸ γνωστὸν τοῦ θεοῦ, quod notum est Dei (Vulg.). This is the sense of γνωστός in the N. T., the Sept., and the Apocrypha (Luke 2:44; John 18:15-16; Acts 1:19; Acts 2:14; Acts 4:16, &c.), as ἂγνωστος means unknown (Acts 17:23); while, in the classics, γνωστός usually signifies knowable, erkennbar, as distinct from γνωτός, known (which word does not occur in the Greek Testament). The authorized version, therefore, is inconsistent with the biblical (though not with the classical) usage of the term, and conveys a false idea; for the heathen did not know all that may be known of God, but, as clearly appears from what follows, they knew only that which may be learned from the general revelation in the book of nature and reason, as distinct from the special revelation in the Bible and in the person of Christ. To retain the E. V., and to supply (with Robinson, sub γνωστός), without revelation, is arbitrary. Lange translates Kenntniss, knowledge; but γνωστόν is objective, γνῶσις is subjective, and does not suit Φανερόν ἐστιν ἐν αὐτοῖς. There is no warrant in the usus loquendi for identifying the two, unless it be Genesis 2:9, LXX.: γνωστὸν καλοῦ καὶ πονηροῦ. The Apostle purposely avoided the term γνῶσις or ἐπίγνωσις τοῦ θεοῦ, which is used in the N. T. of the true knowledge of God in Christ (comp. John 17:3), and chose the more general and objective term γνωστόν, that which is patent to all men in the work of creation.—P. S.]
Romans 1:19; Romans 1:19.—[Φανερόν ἐστιν ἐν αὐτοῖς, in illis (Vulg.), i.e., ἐν ταῖς καρδίαις αὐτῶν, in their hearts; comp. Romans 2:15; Galatians 1:16. It refers to the inborn consciousness of God which is inseparable from our reason, and it contains the germ of the ontological argument of Anselm. Dr. Lange, however, renders, with Erasmus and others: unter ihnen, among them. See Exeg. Notes. Luther’s version (chnen) ignores the preposition ἐν.—P. S.]
Romans 1:19; Romans 1:19.—[ἐΦανέρωσεν, the historic aorist, referring to the original creation.—P. S.]
Romans 1:20; Romans 1:20.—[τὰ γὰρ . κτίσις here means the act of creation, ποιήμασι (dativus instrumenti), the things created, or creatures, and hence ἀπό is here not = ἐκ, which would be tautological, but, like the Hebrew מ, from the time of, or since, a condilo mundo.—P. S.]
Romans 1:20; Romans 1:20.—[Alford objects to the E. V. and translates are perceived; but this destroys the striking oxymoron, ἀόρατα καθορᾶται, invisibilia videntur, das Unschaubare wird erschaut, the invisible becomes visible, or the unseen is seen, viz., by the mind’s eye (νοούμενα). The compound καθορᾶν (ἅπαξ λεγόμενον in the N. T.) means to look down from a higher place, to take a survey, and hence often intensifies the simple verb = ἀκριβῶς ὁρᾶν, pervidere, perspicere, to see clearly.—P. S.]
Romans 1:20; Romans 1:20.—[θειότης, Göttlichkeit, from θεῖος, divinus, refers to the Divine attributes, such as majesty, power, wisdom, goodness, which are manifest in creation; while θεότης, deitas, Deity, Godhead, Gottheit, from θεός, refers to the Divine Being itself, who created the world and dwelt in Christ.—P. S.]
Romans 1:20; Romans 1:20.—[εὶς τό with the infinitive (used by Paul seventeen times in the Romans alone), like the Latin ad with the gerund., indicates properly the intention, in hoc ut, in order that (comp. Romans 1:11; Romans 3:26; Romans 4:11; Romans 4:16; Romans 4:18, &c.); but here it must indicate the (intended) result, = ὥστε, ita ut, so that (Romans 6:12; Romans 7:4-5; 2 Corinthians 1:4; comp. the Exeg. Notes, and Buttmann, N. T. Gr., p. 227).—P. S.]
Romans 1:24; Romans 1:24.—Καί is retained by Meyer on account of its adaptation. [It indicates the correspondence, between men’s guilt and God’s judgment; but the external authorities, מ. A. B. C., Vulgate, Orig., &c., are against it.—P. S.]
Romans 1:24; Romans 1:24. [τοῦ . The reading ἐν αὑτοῖς is sustained by N. A. B. C. D*., against the text. rec., ἐν ἐαυτοῖς, among themselves, reciprocally. Meyer defends the latter reading (referring it to the persons, αὐτῶν), in view of the frequent neglect of the reflex pronoun by the transcribers; e.g., Romans 1:27.—ἀτιμάζεσθαι is passive (Beza, De Wette, Meyer, Lange, Alford), and not middle (Erasmus, Luther, E. V.); and hence αὐτῶν is preferable to αὐτῶν, and ἐν αὐτοῖς to ἐν ἑαυτοῖς, which may have arisen from imagining that “they,” instead of τὰ σώματα, was the subject to ἀτιμάζ.—The genitive, τοῦ ., may be taken simply as gen. appositionis, explaining ἀκαθαρσία, which consisted in their bodies being dishonored; or as implying the purpose of God: in order that (= εις τό); or as denoting the consequence: so that. I prefer the last.—P. S.]
Romans 1:25; Romans 1:25.—[οἲτινες is used αίτιολογικῶς, quippe qui, seeing that they, such as, indicating the class to which one belongs, and implying the reason of the preceding statement. μετήλλαξαν, umtauschten; the compound is stronger than ἢλλαξαν, tauschlen; Romans 1:22.—P. S.]
Romans 1:25; Romans 1:25.—[παρὰ τὸν κτίσαντα, beyond, rather than, so as eventually to exclude the Creator altogether; comp. παῤ ἐκεῖνον, Luke 18:14, and παπὰ Φύαιν, Romans 1:26. The nature of the case here decides for the exclusive rather than the comparative sense of παρά, since idolatry is incompatible with the worship of the true God, who shares His honor with no creature. See the Exeg. Notes.—P. S.]
Romans 1:26; Romans 1:26.—[Or shameful lusts, lusts of dishonor, πάθη , “stronger than ἂτιμα πάθη, as setting forth the status, άτιμία to which the πάθη belonged” (Alford). Luther: schändliche Lüste. Lange: Leidenschaften der Schande. Meyer: schandbare Leidenschaften.—P. S.]
Romans 1:28; Romans 1:28.—[The paronomasia between δοκιμάζω and ἀδόκιμος, which strikingly brings out the adjustment of the punishment to the sin, is lost in the E. V. The Vulg. renders it imperfectly: Non probaverunt—reprobrum sensum. Lange: Nicht würdig hielten—unwürdige (nichtsnutzige) Sinnesart. Conybeare and Howson: “As they thought fit to cast out the acknowledgment of God, God gave them over to an outcast mind,” Alford: “Because they reprobated the knowledge of God, God gave them over to a reprobate mind,” But both Conybeare and Alford omit the ἒχειν.—P. S.]
Romans 1:28; Romans 1:28.—[τὰ μὴ καθήκοντα, not becoming, or unbecoming, indecent, immoral. The E. V. follows the Vulg.: ea quæ non conveniunt. But convenient is one of those words in the E. V. which have changed or modified their meaning, like prevent, lit, &c., and are apt to bewilder the reader, and to mislead him by a false light, Comp. τὰ οὐκ , Ephesians 5:4; and on the difference between μή and ούκ, Winer, § 55, 5, p. 449) (7th ed.).—P. S.]
Romans 1:29; Romans 1:29.—As πορνεία has already been mentioned, it is here probably inserted for completeness sake by Cod. L. and others, or substituted for πονηρία. See Tischendorf. [It is omitted by N. A. B. C. א., Lachmann, Tischendorf, Alford, Meyer, Lange. It may have arisen from πονηρία, but may as easily have been overlooked on account of the similarity. Where the unnatural πορνεία, which was mentioned before, prevails, the ordinary πορνεία abounds also. Upon the whole, I would retain it.—P. S.]
Romans 1:30; Romans 1:30.—[θεοστυγεῖς always used in the passive sense: θεομίσητοι, hated by God (meaning the highest degree of reckless wickedness), and so taken here by Fritzsche, De Wette, Philippi, Meyer, Alford; while the majority of commentators (Theodoret. Œcumenius, Luther, Calvin, Grotius, Tholuck, Ewald, Wordsworth, Hodge) and versions (Syriac, Luth., E. V.) incline to the active sense: μισόθεοι, Dei osores, enemies of God, Gottesfeinde. So Suidas: θεοστυγεῖς θεομίσητοι, οἰ , ὰλλ ̓ οἰ μισοῦντες τὸν θεόν. The advocates of the active sense refer to θεομισής and θεοστυγής as analogies: but Meyer insists that these, too, have the passive meaning, especially θεομισής = θεοστυγής, the opposite of θεοΦιλής. Usage is undoubtedly in favor of the passive; but the connection, and the Scripture idea of God, are in favor of the active sense. The Apostle here describes the sins of the heathen, and not their punishment; and God hates sin, but loves the sinner. See the Exeg. Notes.—P. S.]
Romans 1:31; Romans 1:31.—ἀσπόνδους [in the text. rec. after ἀστόργους] is not sufficiently sustained by Codd. C. D., al. and sounds rather weak between these strong terms. [Omitted by א. A. B. D*. G., and cancelled by Mill, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Meyer. Alford regards it as a gloss in margin to explain ἀσυνθέτους; Meyer as an insertion from the similar catalogue, 2 Tim. in. 3.—P. S.]
[92][The wrath of God is an anthropopathic but most truthful expression of the punitive justice and holiness of God over-against sin, and perfectly harmonizes with His love, which is holy, and repels the evil with the same energy with which it attracts the good. No man can love, who cannot hate. Wrath, or hatred, is inverted love. But while the wrath of man is a passion, and destroys the sinner, God’s wrath is a calm and holy energy, and restores the sinner by destroying sin. Meyer in loc.: “Der Zorn Gottes ist die Liebe des heiligen Gottes zu allem Guten in ihrer entgegengesetzten Energie gegen alles Böse.” He quotes Lactantius, De ira Dei, v. Romans 9:0 : “Si Deus non irascitur impiis et injustis, nec pios justosque diligit; in rebus enim diversis aut in utramque partem moveri necesse est, aut in neutram.” Comp. also Tholuck on Matthew 5:22, and Harless on Ephesians 3:3.—P. S.]
[93][Wordsworth in loc.: “Holding, keeping down, the truth in ungodliness, as in a prison-house. Men have incarcerated the truth, and hold her a captive under restraint and durance, with the bars and bolts of a depraved will and vicious habits, so that she cannot go forth and breathe the air and see the light, and do works suitable to her own nature.” The passage implies, however, that man has the remnants of the Divine image in him, and that, though fallen in Adam, he may fall still deeper by obscuring and suppressing the elements of truth in his reason and conscience. The reference to καταλαμβάνειν, John 1:5, is questionable. But see Lange in loc.,—P. S.]
[94][Also Alford, who justly remarks that the pregnant ἐν, “in and by,” implies that their ἀδικία is the status wherein, and the instrument whereby, they hold back the truth lit up in their consciences.—P. S.]
[95][Romans 1:19-20, as also Romans 1:20-26, and Romans 1:27 of this chapter, are quoted by Hippolytus, in his recently discovered Philosophumena, or Refut. omnium hæres., lib. ix. c. 9, p. 444, and v. 7, p. 140, ed. Duncker and Schneidewin.—P. S.]
[96][These two commentators, however, differ in their exposition of διότι. See Textual Note2. The Apostle proves first that men had the ἀλήθεια (19, 20), and then that they held it back, and perverted it into a lie (21–23), and that therefore (διό) God’s wrath came upon them (24 ff.).—P. S.]
[97][So Dr. Lange translates τὸ γνωστὸν τοῦ θεοῦ, but I cannot agree. See Textual Note3.—P. S.]
[98][So Dr. Lange translates ἐν αὐτοῖς, unter ihnen, among them, instead of in them. See Text. Note4.—P. S.]
[99][Erasmus and Grotius, with the restriction to the superior knowledge of heathen philosophers, as Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato; others in the sense that the knowledge of God was a common revelation, accessible to all. Dr. Lange takes the latter view, as appears from what follows.—P. S.]
[100][Precisely the same remark is made by Alford, who often follows De Wette very closely.—P. S.]
[101][Lange: Die Unschaubarkeiten werden als Erkanntes angeschaut. Comp. Textual Note7.—P. S.]
[102][Similar passages are quoted from Cicero, De Divin., 2:72: “Esse præstantem aliquam æternamque naturam … pulchritudo mundi ordoque rerum cœlestium cogit confiteri;” and Quæst. Tusc., Romans 1:29 : “Deum non vides, tamen Deum agnoscis ex ejus operibus.” Comp. also Bengel in loc: “Incomparabile oxymoron. Invisibilia Dei, si unquam, certe in creatione fucta essent visibilia: sed tum quoque non nisi per intelligentiam videri cœperunt.”—P. S.]
[103][Alford: “Eternal, and Almighty, have always been recognized epithets of the Creator.”—P. S.]
Romans 1:20; Romans 1:20.—[εὶς τό with the infinitive (used by Paul seventeen times in the Romans alone), like the Latin ad with the gerund., indicates properly the intention, in hoc ut, in order that (comp. Romans 1:11; Romans 3:26; Romans 4:11; Romans 4:16; Romans 4:18, &c.); but here it must indicate the (intended) result, = ὥστε, ita ut, so that (Romans 6:12; Romans 7:4-5; 2 Corinthians 1:4; comp. the Exeg. Notes, and Buttmann, N. T. Gr., p. 227).—P. S.]
[105][Alford: “γνόντες, ‘with the knowledge above stated.’ This participle testifies plainly that matter of fact, and not of possibility, has been the subject of the foregoing verses. From this point, we take up what they might have done, but did not.”—P. S.]
[106][Bengel: “Gratias agere (εὐχαρ) debemus ob beneficia: glorificare (δοξάζ.) ob ipsas virtutes divinas.”—P. S.]
[107][Alford: “Their heart (καρδία of the whole inner man, the seat of knowledge and feeling) being foolish (unintelligent, not retaining God in its knowledge) became park (lost the little light it had, and wandered blindly in the mazes of folly).”—P. S.]
[108][In like manner, Meyer and Alford refer the words not so much to the schools of philosophy, as to the assumption of wisdom by the Greeks in general (1 Corinthians 1:21), which is always connected with an alienation from the truth of God. Tholuck, also, in his fifth edition, refers the passage expressly to the whole civilized heathen world which looked down upon the rest of mankind as outside barbarians (Romans 1:14).—P. S.]
[109] [Tholuck quotes from Lucan (Phars. viii. 83):
Nos in templa tuam Romana recipimus IsimSemideosque canes.—P. S.]
[110][παρέδωκε = εἲασε (Chrysostom), or = συνεχώρησε (Theodoret). This interpretation of the Greek fathers was followed by the rationalists, and is contrary to the meaning of the word (see Meyer). It explains nothing, for if God permits the sinner to sink deeper into vice, He does it, of course, with wise intention as a sovereign and righteous Judge.—P. S.]
[111][Calov: “Traditi sunt a Deo non effective, nec solum permissive, nec tantum ἐκβατικῶς, sed δικαστικῶς et judicialiter.” So Tholuck, Philippi, Alford (“not merely permissive, but judicial”). Meyer, stronger: “παρέδωκε expresses the real active abandonment (die wirkliche active Preisgebung) on the part of God.” Both the Bible and daily experience teach that sin is punished by sin, as virtue is rewarded by virtue; and this is a Divinely instituted law in perfect harmony with our personal freedom and moral accountability; for man’s will is in every act of sin as well as of obedience, and hence what is represented in one passage as the work of God, is in another passage just as properly represented as the work of man, comp. Ephesians 4:19 : οἲτινες ἐαυτοὐς παρέδωκαν τῇ , κ.τ.λ. God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, Exodus 7:13; Exodus 9:12; Exodus 10:1; Exodus 10:20; Exodus 10:27; Exodus 11:10; Romans 9:18, but Pharaoh first hardened his own heart, Exodus 8:15; Exodus 8:32; Exodus 9:34-35, so that God punished him by his own sin. Comp. Doctrinal and Ethical No. 8.—P. S.]
[112][So also Meyer (Erguss der errcgten Pletat), Alford, and others. The doxology is the natural outburst of a holy indignation which puts the sin of idolatry in a more striking light and holds it up to the abhorrence of all pious minds. Comp. similar doxologies Romans 9:5; 1 Timothy 1:17; 2 Timothy 4:18; comp. Genesis 9:26; Genesis 14:20; Genesis 24:27.—P. S.]
[113][It is in the Bible only applied to God, while μακάριος and the corresponding Hebrew אַשְׁדֵי, happy, is applied to man,
Very rarely to God (only in two passages of the N. T., 1 Timothy 1:11; 1 Timothy 6:15). The E. V. renders εὐλογητός (and εὐλογημένος) always and properly blessed, but varies in its translation of μακάριος between happy and blessed; using the latter in those passages where spiritual happiness or the future glory of saints or the blessedness of God is intended, as Psalms 1:1; Psalms 31:1.Luke 1:48; Matthew 5:3-11; 1 Timothy 1:11; 1 Timothy 6:15; Titus 2:13.—P. S.]
[114][Comp. the fearful and yet truthful description of the horrible vice of παιδεραστία among the highly civilized Greeks, in Döllinger’s learned work: Heidenthum und Judenthum, 1857, p. 684 ff. “Bei den Griechen,” he says, “trill das Laster der Päderastie mit allen Symptomen einer grossen nationalen Krankheit, gleichsam eines ethischen Miasma auf; es zeigt sich als ein Gefühl, das stärker und heftiger wirkte, als die Weiberliebe bei anderen Völkern, massloser, leidenschaftticher in seinen Ausbrüchen war. Rasende Eifersucht, unbedingte Hingebung, sinnliche Gluth, zärtiche Tändelei, nächtliches Weilen vor der Thüre des Geliebten, Alles, was zur Carricatur der natürlichen Geschlechlsliebe gehört, findet sich dabei. Auch die ernstesten Moralisten waren in der Beurtheilung des Verhällnisses höchst nachsichtig, mitunter. mehr als nachsichtig, sie behandelten die Sache häufig mehr mit leichtfertigem Scherze, und duldeten die Schuldigen in ihrer Gesellschaft. In der ganzen Literatur der vorchristlichen Periode ist kaum ein Schriftsteller zu finden, der sich enschieden dagegen erklärt hätte. Vielmehr war die ganze Gesellschaft davon angesteckt, und man athmete das Miasma, so zu sagen, mit der Luft ein.”—P. S.]
[115][Meyer: κατεργάζεσθαι is used in the good as well as the bad sense, but in distinction from ἐργάζεσθαι it always expresses the idea of carrying out, or completing.—P. S.]
[116][The classification, of Dr. Lange is certainly original and ingenious, and decidedly preferable to any other, although perhaps somewhat artificial. The next best classification is that of Bengel in Romans 1:29 : “Tota enumeratio ordinem habet sapientem. per membra novem, in affectibus: duo, in sermone: tria, repectu Dei, et sui, et proximi; et duo, in rebus gerendis: sex, respectu necessitudinum.” He also remarks that ἀδικία, the opposite of justitia, is put first, immisericordia last; justice has life, injustice death; Romans 1:32. But it seems to me that the Apostle, in this catalogue of vices, had regard not so much to systematic order, as to rhetorical effect, with the view to bring out more strikingly the absolute necessity of redemption. It is a rapid accumulation and rising climax to the crisis of the disease, which was the turning-point of the cure. Man’s extremity was God’s opportunity. Christ appeared “in the fulness of time,” just when He was most needed, and when the way for His coming was fully prepared, both negatively by the hopeless corruption of society, and positively by the mission of the law and the promise in Israel, and the aspirations of the better class of heathen.—P. S.]
Romans 1:29; Romans 1:29.—As πορνεία has already been mentioned, it is here probably inserted for completeness sake by Cod. L. and others, or substituted for πονηρία. See Tischendorf. [It is omitted by N. A. B. C. א., Lachmann, Tischendorf, Alford, Meyer, Lange. It may have arisen from πονηρία, but may as easily have been overlooked on account of the similarity. Where the unnatural πορνεία, which was mentioned before, prevails, the ordinary πορνεία abounds also. Upon the whole, I would retain it.—P. S.]
[118][Philippi likewise refers to the heathen myth of Hades with its punishments, and quotes from Æschylus, Eumenid. 1:259–265.—P. S.]
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