THE BOOK OF ROMANS CHAPTER 1 VERSES 18-31 | THE "GOOD NEWS" | THE WRATH OF GOD IS REVEALED

Mike Balloun teaches today. 08/22/20.
ROMANS CHAPTER 1 VERSES 18-31
The "Good News" / The Wrath of God is Revealed

VERSES: Acts 18:1-2; Romans 1:1-4, 1:16, 2:9-10, 3:10

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ROMANS 1:18-31 THE “GOOD NEWS" / THE WRATH OF GOD IS REVEALED
Let us keep in mind that in the first 3 chapters, Paul was shaping the Roman Believers’ understanding that both Gentiles and Jews are on the same ground with God in the New Testament. It was generally understood by Jews (compared with themselves) that Gentiles were idolaters. And so after the introduction and salutation, the rest of this Chapter is addressing God’s Wrath and the character of Idolaters.

God’s Wrath is what gives the force behind the Gospel. God loves and God hates. We will never understand the goodness and love of God until we understand the severity of God in His hatred for Evil. So it is, we must face Chapters 1-3, which centers on the Severity of God, before we can get to Chapters 4 and 5 which are centered on the grace and mercy of God.

Solomon, by the Spirit, wrote: “The wrath of a king is as messengers of death: but a wise man will pacify it.” [Proverbs 16:14] (God/Jesus as King is a theme that will be brought out as we go through the Book of Romans.) The Wrath of God is HIS WAY OF PUTTING AND KEEPING THINGS RIGHT. And note that this revelation of God’s Wrath is set forth by Paul in the Gospel Age of Grace and Mercy.

Christ warns His disciples, “fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” [Matthew 10:28] His Wrath is eternal, as He is. Though God’s Wrath will be quelled when all things are reconciled, yet its expression will be visible forever in everlasting destruction. “And they will go out and look on the dead bodies of those who rebelled against me; the worms that eat them will not die, the fire that burns them will not be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind.” [Isaiah 66:24]

His Wrath is not:
1) Vindictiveness, revengefulness and unbridled anger, such as an emotion which a man would have. To think in these terms is to make God too personal; or like in manner to man (thinking that God would react as a man would).
2) Neither is His Wrath of that other extreme; to think God too impersonal, as if He had in ancient times just set certain Laws of the Universe into play. And that when these Laws are broken, there is simply Laws of retribution set in place; laws of the universe, similar to the impersonal law of gravity; natural ramifications of impersonal judgments that set in on the transgressors.

The Truth of the Word resists either of these beliefs or misunderstandings. Wrath is God’s reaction to being offended. And is justified in His taking offense, since He is the Almighty Creator. His being rightly offended could be illustrated in any number of limited ways. For instance, how would a man react, if having taken much care in constructing some beautiful thing, which he thought to be better than just good, but very good, and after having revealed how to care and operate it, he entrusted it to another, who then carelessly destroyed that beautiful creation through willful abuse, ignoring the instructions of its care that he had been given? And having shunned all attempts to correct his wrong behavior, continued in contemptuous and total disregard to abuse and destroy that which he had been entrusted? Most certainly the offended man would react very strongly to the unrelenting offender. This illustrates God’s warrant and reaction in Wrath, but He is not a man, whose wrath often is unbridled anger, rage, and full of vindictiveness. But the Creator’s Wrath is wisely purposeful and measured by His Holy Righteousness and is therefore right. His Wrath is the responsible reaction according to His Righteousness and is personal, because He is a ‘person’ and the One Who has been rejected.

AGAINST WHAT IS GOD’S WRATH SET?
VERSE 18 “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men…”
His Wrath is not arbitrary but set against Ungodliness and unrighteousness.
Ungodliness is an attitude set against God and is the chief sin. No consideration of God in gratitude or thankfulness. No thought of God. He is not a part of their world or life. He is not thought to be necessary or additive. The attitude is, ‘Who needs God?’ On the contrary, the unGodly make their own god; one that suits them; one that that their debased minds now have conjured or gravitated to.

The nature of Ungodliness is in the first place directed towards God Himself. The offense of ungodliness can be understood from the First Tablet of the Commandments given to Moses which had to do with honoring God....

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