God’s wrath against the idolatry: (1:19-20):
Our God is an impartial God and His judgements are impartial and unbiased. All those who do not acknowledge Him are subject to His wrath. This calls for simple common sense. God has revealed Himself plainly through General revelation and Special revelation. But human beings deliberately chose to reject God.
- General revelation: The entire natural world bears witness to God through its beauty, discipline, complexity, design and usefulness to human beings. He cannot keep himself from praising God. But men have deliberately rejected Him and worshipped the creation instead of creator. “The heavens declare the glory of God and skies proclaim the work of His hands” … (Ps.19:1ff). They continually speaking to mankind about their designer, but men have deliberately rejected God. So men are without excuse. God’s manifestation through the creation has failed to bring mankind to salvation.
- Special revelation: Jesus Christ came down into this world to save all mankind. Since there was no hope for us, “He took the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness” (Phil.2:7ff).
Through General Revelation and Special Revelation God has manifested to all of us. No one can complain that God has left insufficient evidence of His existence and character, the fault is with those who reject the evidence.
- God’s invisible attributes: (1:20a): God’s invisible attributes are manifested by His invisible works viz. His creation. The immensity of His creation show God’s omnipotence, His omniscience. His handiworks are adopted to give the mankind infinite goodness from age to age.
- God’s eternal power: (1:20b): God’s eternal power sustains the earth, the galaxies and the skies. In due time mankind gets benefits from God’s creation. God controls the whole universe and kept a boundary for them all.
- The divine nature (Godhead): (1:20c): The Triune God viz. God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are helping the mankind at all times. God spoke through creation. God came down as Man in the form of Jesus Christ. God is now leading individuals through the Holy Spirit.
All the three attributes speak and prove God’s existence.
They became fools and their eyes were darkened: (1:20-23): Despite God’s manifestation in various ways, they neither knew God, nor glorified Him, nor were thankful to God, but became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened. Even after knowing God through General Revelation and the advent of Christ through Special Revelation, they glorified Him not as God. Instead they exchanged God’s glory to images made by corruptible men. They did not honour God. Therefore, God, in punishment for their sins, gave them over to lies. They manifested no gratitude for the blessings they received from His Providence, but became vain in their imaginations. They became fools, even the wisest of their philosophers discoursed about the divine nature, including Socrates, Plato, or Seneca. In short, their foolish, darkened minds did not seek God. They became vile, corrupted, and filled with corrupting passions of their own hearts! Since they did not discover Him, they scarcely sought Him in created things. “There is nothing so beautiful as good, nothing so ugly as evil. But in our imaginations, we have reversed it. We have made good to become ugly and boring and we have made evil to be intriguing, attractive and full of charm” (CS Lewis).
They changed the glory of the un-corruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man. The finest representation of their deities was in the human figure and their sculptors spent all their skill. Hence they carved the “Hercules” of Farnese, the “Venus” of Italy, and the “Apollo” of Belvidere. And when they had formed their gods according to the human shape, they endowed them with human passions and clothed them with attributes of extraordinary strength, beauty, wisdom etc. Not having the true principles of morality, they represented them as slaves to the most disorderly and disgraceful passions, excelling in irregularities the most profligate of men, as possessing unlimited powers of sensual gratification.
Further they made images birds, animals and reptiles as sacred ones.
Ex. The bird group: the eagle of Jupiter among the Romans, and the ibis and hawk among the Egyptians.
The animals group: As the apis or white ox among the Egyptians, from which the idolatrous Israelites took their golden calf. The goat, the monkey, and the dog, were also sacred animals among the same people.
Reptiles: Such as the crocodile and scarabeus (beetle), among the Egyptians.
The revelation of the wrath of God: (1:24-32)
People replaced God’s truth with Satan’s lie! Satan’s lie is nothing but: worshiping the creature and not the Creator; worshiping man instead of God; worshiping things instead of Christ. Satan tempted Christ to do this (Matt 4:8-11). Jesus said: “if you hold to my teaching you are really my disciples, then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (Jn.8:31-32).
So God in His righteous wrath and judgement, gave them over to sin and allowed to self destruction of sin. It is sad to see the tragic results of this decline. Prophet Hosea expresses the judgemental aspect of God’s giving up and leaving up to our sin. “Ephraim is joined to idols; leave him alone!” (Hos.4:17). When we sin we think that it is God’s mercy or kindness that allows man to continue in sin. It is actually His wrath that allows us to go on destroying ourselves with sin. We can see 3-kinds of tragedy:
- God gave them up to uncleanness and idolatry: (1:24-25): Idolatry leads to prostitution. When men choose an evil manner of life, they also choose the consequences such a manner of life brings. This is proof that God has established a moral universe. God hands over men to the very things which they desire. As a result their bodies are dishonoured, idolatry, worshipping and serving the creatures lead to sensuality. This is very true in Third world countries like India. From generations to generations, the people have degraded themselves to worshipping trees, stones, animals, reptiles, birds and all kinds of beasts, seas, sun, moon etc. They became Gnostics, polytheists etc. Ex: Evolutionists want us to believe that humans have evolved from primitive, ignorant, beast-like forms into the marvellous creature as we see them today. Paul says just the opposite. God created man in the highest order of His creation, but he made himself into a beast!
People tend to believe lies that reinforce their own selfish personal beliefs. Now-a-days moves, TV, media are often presenting sinful life-style to the world. We find ourselves constantly being bombarded by the beliefs that are contrary to the Biblical teaching. We must understand that Bible is our Text book from which we derive all the rules, laws and principles for our lives.