Romans 1:24-27 NKJV – 24 Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, 25 who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. 26 For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. 27 Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.
V24 Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves…
“Gave them up” is a punishment by allowing people to do greater sin. God hardens the heart when the heart rejects God. Even rejection might lead to God stopping His call to be saved. If they don’t repent, then the punishment is to sink deeper into sin. The Greek word for gave up is (G3860) παραδίδωμι paradídōmi, which means to hand over in a number of different senses. Here, it is the idea of handing over to greater sin as punishment. Compare 1 Corinthians 5:5, Ephesians 4:19, and 1 Timothy 1:20. Alford adds: “not merely permissive, but judicial: God delivered them over. As sin begets sin, and darkness of mind deeper darkness, grace gives place to judgment, and the divine wrath hardens men, and hurries them on to more fearful degrees of depravity.”
What does God give them over to? Since they have suppressed the obvious truth about God and their fleshly desires, He gives them over to dishonoring their bodies as addressed in V25-26. These are sexual sins of all types.
Comment from the Annotated Commentary: “But why should there be a threefold repetition of the fact that He gave them up? Man is composed of body, soul, and spirit. The first giving up is as to the body; this is found in Romans 1:24-25. Then He gave them up to vile passions; this concerns the soul, and the horrible things stated in Romans 1:26-27 are the results. These were practiced openly in the Greek and Roman world in the days of the Apostle Paul. Ancient literature bears abundant witness to that effect. These vile things are still going on in heathen India, China, Africa, and elsewhere. They are found likewise in the midst of Christendom. “Whenever and wherever the Truth of God is abandoned, degradation in every way follows, for the Truth of God alone can restrain evil. The third giving up is found in Romans 1:29. Given up to a reprobate mind, which involves the spirit of man. “All these things spoken of here are clearly regarded as the recompense” even now, of the error of the creature, in departing from the Creator.”
V25 …who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
The Greek word for exchange is (G3337) μεταλλάσσω metallássō, to change with, that is, exchange. When they began suppressing truth, they exchanged truth for the lie. The lie is that there is another god, multiple gods, or divine council (pantheon-polytheism). Compare Isaiah 44:20, Jeremiah 10:14, and Jeremiah 13:25.
To worship is to bow down, offer praise and thanksgiving, imploring for assistance for wisdom, healing, etc., and serving the false god’s worldview, lifestyle, and laws.
They worship the creature, that is, something created. The only uncreated being is Yahweh. See Isaiah 40:25-26. Compare Jeremiah 8:2, Jeremiah 19:13, and Ezekiel 8:16. There is only one God (John 5:44, Isaiah 43:10, and Nehemiah 9:6). This one God is the creator. He is not a created being. God is always blessed because He is the only God, creator, and giver of providence.
V26 For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature.
After practicing sexual sins, they continued in sinful desires into unnatural sexual practices.
Comments:
Adam Clarke:
“Their system of idolatry necessarily produced all kinds of impurity. How could it be otherwise, when the highest objects of their worship were adulterers, fornicators, and prostitutes of the most infamous kind, such as Jupiter, Apollo, Mars, Venus, etc.? Of the abominable evils with which the apostle charges the Gentiles in this and the following verse, I could produce a multitude of proofs from their own writings; but it is needless to make the subject plainer than the apostle has left it.”
Wuest Word Studies:
“The passions controlling these of whom Paul is speaking caused them to put an incorrect estimate upon the sacredness, dignity, and purity of the physical body and thus to use it in a way which dishonored it. Vincent’s note is helpful: “As distinguished from epithumia (lusts) in verse 24, pathē (passions), is the narrower and intense word. epithumia is the larger word, including the whole world of active lusts and desires, while the meaning of pathos is passive, being the diseased condition out of which the lusts spring. epithumia are evil longings; pathē, ungovernable affections. Thus it appears that the divine punishment was the more severe, in that they were given over to a condition, and not merely to an evil desire.”
Pett:
“As a result of worshipping ‘suggestive’ images which over-exaggerated the sexual parts, and indulging in nature worship where copulation was seen as stirring the gods into similar action, men became more and more depraved in their sexuality. Temple adultery was commonplace, and homosexuality became rampant. Man was reaping the consequences of his actions.”
V27 Likewise, also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.
The men did the same. The Greek word for men is a male and distinguished from a female.
Wuest Word Studies:
“The word for “women” is not the word used as in John 4:9, gunē, but thēlus, “a female,” and the word for “men” in Romans 1:27 is not anthropos, or even anēr, a male member of the human race, but arsen, male as distinguished from a female. Vincent says that these terms are used “because only the distinction of sex is contemplated.” “Change” is metallassō, “to exchange one thing for another.” “Use” here is chrēsis, used of the sexual use of a woman. “Natural” is phusis, “the nature of things, the force, laws, order of nature, as opposed to that which is monstrous, abnormal, perverse.” “Against nature” is para phusin, “that which is against nature’s laws.”
We learn:
- How God punishes sin.
- Why people reject God and suppress truth.
- The downhill trajectory of sin.
Questions:
- Have you repented and believed in Jesus?
- What excuses do you have for rejecting Jesus?