The Bible’s progression of truth is called the Arc of Scripture and shows how people’s view of, and relationship with, God developed over time. In this message, I apply the Arc of Scripture to the wrath of God and show how the Bible progresses and changes from a view of God as angry and volatile to a better way as revealed by Paul the apostle.
Text: Romans 1:18-28
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.
24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done” (a list of their sins).
We’ll come back to these verses shortly. But first, let’s explore the wrath of God in Scripture…
The wrath of God in Scripture
1st Reference: Numbers 1:53, “The Levites, however, are to set up their tents around the tabernacle of the covenant law so that my wrath will not fall on the Israelite community.”
From this first reference, there are another 180 mentions wrath in the Bible, many of them refer to God’s wrath, most of them are in the Hebrew Scriptures. 23 are found in the New Testament.
Deuteronomy 9:19, Moses says to Israel, “I feared the anger and wrath of the Lord, for he was angry enough with you to destroy you. But again, the Lord listened to me.”
This is an ancient view of God, over 1300 years before Jesus ~ over 3,300 years ago. This was the late Bronze age.
The arc of Scripture progresses in its view of God’s wrath:
God directly enacts wrath on people
God uses others to execute his wrath (the prophets)
New Testament understanding (Romans 1)
Understanding Romans
1. Romans is ONE letter.
57 CE. Written from Corinth
We must be careful not to pick out a line here and there without considering the entire letter.
2. Romans communicates the Gospel of Grace
Chapter 1: All gentiles are sinners
Chapter 2: All Jews are sinners
Chapter 3: All people are sinners
Romans 3:23-24, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”
The grace of God shows up much more clearly when we realize how much we need it!
From Romans 3:24 onwards, Paul explores this Gospel of Grace!
Understanding Romans 1
Chapter 1: All gentiles are sinners
(18) The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness…
I.e. Paul is speaking of the wrath of God which he will define for his readers in the next few verses. He uses idolatry as his example.
Rome was a very religious city with twelve main gods and goddesses the BIG THREE being Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, known as the Capitoline Triad, as they were worshipped in an elaborate temple on Rome’s Capitoline Hill.
Every god had its image, and so idolatry was rife. It’s this theme that Paul addresses in chapter one – how idolatry leads to sin and depravity.
Idolatry = Extreme admiration and reverence for something or someone, surpassing love for God.
It’s also in these verses that Paul provides a New Testament understanding and definition of the wrath of God…
Q. What is this wrath?
Paul tells us three times…
(24) “God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.
(26) “God gave them over to shameful lusts.
(28) “God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done.”
Romans 1 needs to be understood in context, carefully considering the history, culture, religion, and sexuality of Ancient Rome.
It is not true that the city was sexually out of control. Qualities of self-mastery and moderation were highly esteemed, and rampant immorality was despised, much as it is today. However, prostitution was permitted, public and prevalent, and pederasty was accepted, that is, sexual activity involving a man and a boy or youth. Today, we would refer to this as paedophilia and is a crime, and rightly so. But that wasn’t so in first century Rome.
Roman men engaging in this kind of relationship maintained their masculinity by taking the active sexual role of penetrating their male partner who had to be of inferior status – either a slave or a temple prostitute, or a non-Roman. Pederasty became a particularly popular way of humiliating and abusing a conquered people. It is likely that Paul is addressing abusive sexual relationships in Romans 1 – especially those connected with idolatrous temple worship.
Priestesses would have sex with one another as an act of “devotion” to their gods. Some men engaged sexually with eunuch prostitutes ~ other men who had emasculated themselves for the purpose of “sacred” temple sex. This was practiced in all the pagan temples in the ancient world in cities like Rome, Corinth, and Ephesus.
Catherine Kroeger comments in the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society that “Men wore veils and long hair as signs of their dedication to the god, while women used the unveiling and shorn hair to indicate their devotion. Men masqueraded as women, and in a rare vase painting from Corinth a woman is dressed in satyr pants equipped with the male organ. Thus, she dances before Dionysus, a deity who had been raised as a girl and was himself called male-female and ‘sham man.”
Kroeger continues: “the sex exchange that characterized the cults of such great goddesses as Aphrodite…and Artemis of Ephesus was more grisly. Males voluntarily castrated themselves and assumed women’s garments. A relief from Rome shows a high priest of Cybele (se-bell). The castrated priest wears veil, necklaces, earrings and feminine dress. He is considered to have exchanged his sexual identity and to have become a she-priest.”
That’s what Paul is addressing in Romans 1.
When he writes that some men, “received in themselves the due penalty for their error,” he’s referring to the pagan male priest’s self-castration rites which, of course, resulted in a bodily “penalty.”
For the rest of this chapter, Paul teaches what happens when people persist is such idolatrous immorality…
“God…gave them over” the apostle states three times for emphasis. The Greek word (paradidómi) rendered “gave them over” means released, delivered over, in the sense that God may release people to their own free will…
Remember, Paul started this discussion with the words “The wrath of God is being revealed… What he reveals as the wrath of God, is that God allows people to exercise their free will even when it means they will make wrong choices.
Wrath = the painful results of God letting us have our way.
The arc of Scripture, then, takes us on a journey from a primitive understanding of wrath, where God appears to burn with anger and react violently, to a picture in which God allows the self-destructive consequences of our own stubborn disobedience. It’s this definition of wrath that we see revealed in the New Testament:
Wrath in the New Testament
Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Sin carries its own penalty)
Galatians 6:8, “Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.”
James 1:13-17, “When tempted, no one should say, ‘God is tempting me.’ For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
*Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.*”
God is good and only good. The Lord is good to all!
Discussion Questions
Share together how you have felt at various times when you’ve read about the wrath of God in the Bible?
How does the Arc of Scripture (progression) help you to better understand some of the older verses in the Bible?
The apostle lays down the blackness of sin as a backdrop to the gem of God’s grace. Discuss: “The grace of God shows up much more clearly when we realize how much we need it!”I define Idolatry as “Extreme admiration and reverence for something or someone, surpassing love for God.” While we don’t make idols like they did in the ancient world, it doesn’t mean our lives are free from idolatry. What are some idols you’ve had? Do you still have an idol or two that surpassing your love for God? How will you put away this idol?
Read & discuss the section in the notes that describes what life was like in ancient Rome.
Discuss: The New Testament definition of wrath is “the painful results of God letting us have our way.” Share together examples of bad decisions you have made in the past as well as the results. What did you learn from those mistakes?
Read and discuss the following scriptures in the light of the definition of wrath ~ Romans 6:23; Galatians 6:8; James 1:13-17.
Why do you think James emphasises the words, “Do not be deceived” when it comes to God’s goodness?