Romans 1:21, commentary and pictures

To know God is to be accountable to honor Him as God and to thank Him, and to refuse this turns the mind to empty imaginations and darkens the foolish heart, rejecting what He makes known through creation to follow its own desires. The darkening is progressive, for as sin grows bolder the knowledge and love of God fade, and Satan's agencies confuse the mind with seductive ideas that lead to questioning divine revelation until wisdom is turned to foolishness. So it was with the children of Seth mingling with the seed of Cain, with those in Noah's day who professed to know God while making images to represent Him, and with the antediluvians who fixed their affections on the gifts instead of the Giver and turned to worship nature and works of their own hands. The same loss came upon the nations and the philosophers who once had pure knowledge but worshiped created things, upon Israel who turned God's appointed revelations into a veil, and upon the learned who met Christ yet could not discern spiritual things. The whole first chapter is therefore to be read in its full force to ministers, churches and families professing to believe, for those who know the truth yet do not obey it in righteousness, like the five foolish virgins with lamps but no oil, hold the truth in unrighteousness and will meet shame under the wrath revealed against all ungodliness.

Meaning and Early History

To know God is to remain accountable to glorify Him as God and to thank Him, and failure to do so turns the mind to empty thinking with the foolish heart darkened. The verse describes the disobedient, who reject what God makes known through creation and through His word and follow their own desires and imaginations instead of obeying Him.

The darkening is progressive, for as sin grows bolder the knowledge and love of God fade from mind and heart until thoughts become empty and hearts grow dark. Refusing to retain God in knowledge brings darkness of heart, which is the knowledge of evil as opposed to good. This darkening began with humanity's first parents, when a false picture of God led them to distrust Him, while sin degraded human nature and shaped ideas of God according to narrowness and selfishness.

Becoming vain in imaginations is the work of Satan's active agencies confusing minds and filling them with vain imaginations so they will not become interested in the truth. Through seductive ideas he leads them to question and at last to disbelieve divine revelation and God's existence, with sin made attractive unto disobedience and moral ruin. The desire for speculative knowledge that led Adam and Eve to disobey is an example of this vain reasoning.

The verse warns against exalting limited human reason to judge the Creator or to speculate about His nature and authority while claiming wisdom, for such reasoning makes thinking vain and darkens the heart. Such inquiry yields no true gain and endangers the soul.

The verse describes the children of Seth before the Flood after they left separation and mingled and intermarried with the descendants of Cain. Beguiled by beauty and constant allurement, many worshipers of God were drawn into sin and lost their peculiar holy character, fixing the mind on worldly prosperity and enjoyment and neglecting the commandments. Disregarding the restriction of the seventh commandment in taking wives of all they chose, they went in the way of Cain, no longer retained God in knowledge, and became like the depraved in spirit and deeds until given over to a mind void of judgment and sin spread like deadly leprosy.

The verse describes the apostasy in the days when giants were in the earth, when men knew God but glorified Him not as God, became vain in imagination, and had darkened hearts. In Noah's day they were not all absolute idolaters, but while practicing idolatry they professed to know God and made grand images by which they planned to represent God before the world. That professing class took the lead in rejecting Noah's preaching and by influence led others to reject it.

The verse describes the antediluvians who knew God through rich gifts for their good, such as giant forests, blooming gardens, fountains, streams, lakes, minerals, gold, silver, precious stones, and the glories of mountains and valleys, yet did not glorify Him as Giver with love and thanks. They looked on these precious things as exclusively their own, as if they had brought them into existence, fixed affections on the gifts instead of the Giver, used bounties to glorify themselves, and turned blessing into a curse and means of remembering Him into means of forgetting Him. Not desiring to retain God in knowledge they soon denied His existence, became vain in seeking only to gratify proud hearts in pleasure and wickedness, and fell into adoring nature in place of the God of nature and glorifying human genius. They worshiped the works of their own hands of gold and silver, precious stones and choice wood, teaching children to bow to graven images at altars and groves in green fields and under trees, with gardens, avenues, fruit trees and statuary made to delight the senses and allure to idolatrous worship.

The nations had once known God but lost that knowledge through corrupt practices, failing to honor Him or give thanks until futile in thinking with darkened hearts, and Israel was chosen to help them know God again. Pagan philosophers once had a pure knowledge of God, but degeneracy obscured it when they began to worship created things and God's handiwork in the sun, moon and stars instead of glorifying God. Uneducated heathen still learn through nature and necessity and, dissatisfied with darkness, reach out for light searching for God as the first great cause, yet the revelation of God given in Genesis stands in striking contrast to heathen ideas.

The verse describes the heathen in the days of Christ who had lost sight of the lessons God gave in nature and nearly ceased to discern God in His works. Created things were made to manifest God, but sin cast a pall over creation so that works became a barrier concealing Him, and by worshiping the creature instead of the Creator thinking became empty and understanding darkened. When God's word is rejected nature's lessons are distorted and turn minds away, interpreting nature apart from God and even above Him. The same perversion happened in Israel, where human teaching was put in place of God and nature, the sacrificial service and the Scriptures themselves, all given to reveal God, were turned into means of concealing Him, and Christ came to draw aside the veil sin cast over nature and set nature and the Bible in new light.

The verse describes learned and high-positioned men who met Christ and claimed superior spiritual understanding. Though they knew God they refused the light He brought in revealing the infinite Mind, the words of eternal life, the character of the Father, and what had been from everlasting and was known to the Father and Son, and did not honor God or give thanks. Lacking the Spirit by whom alone spiritual things are discerned, they could not grasp His teaching and were left in blind darkness with empty thinking.

The verse is illustrated by Balaam, who had some knowledge of God and of the sacrificial offerings of the Hebrews yet hoped by surpassing them in costly gifts to secure blessing for sinful projects. Idolatrous sentiments gained control of his mind, wisdom turned to foolishness, spiritual vision was beclouded, and he brought blindness upon himself by yielding to Satan. The same failure belongs to God's people in every age when perceptions are dull to His great love and mercy, whereas discerning His wonderful power constantly exerted by day and night would fill hearts with gratitude and awe at His majesty.

Nature, Idols, and Worldly Wisdom

God's matchless power and love and law are seen in what He has made — granite rocks, towering mountains, clefts, gulches, gorges, castle rocks, caves, valleys, green fields, trees, grass, buds and flowers — and should point the mind to the Creator of heaven and earth, glorify Him as God, and awaken gratitude, while hearts that stay dull and thankless under these daily tokens stand condemned. Nature is His servant to reveal His power and handiwork, and men are to look from nature to nature's God instead of offering idolatry to nature itself, for worshiping nature, the work of the divine hand, is idolatry, though it strikes the senses as more sensible than worshiping images bearing the mold of finite man. To be led by scientific presentations away from the real to the imaginary is to become vain in imagination and to fail to glorify God. Man, the crowning object of creation, endowed with intellect and reason and power of speech, has most greatly dishonored God, and human beings who would not obey God's law will in the judgment stand before God ashamed and condemned; images and shrines of dead men cannot call the mind to God or awaken gratitude if these rich tokens of His power do not.

Those who knew God but refused to honor Him as God and Creator or to thank Him for what He had given and provided turned instead to the works of their own hands. They chose not to think of the Creator, denied His existence, corrupted the bounties He had placed on earth for their benefit, and gloried in and worshiped the works of their own hands. They made and worshiped idols and images and created things, worshiped treasures and gifts, and rejected God as Giver. As they put God out of their hearts their thinking became empty and their hearts darkened, and their conduct became increasingly debased and corrupt.

The verse describes infidel authors, philosophical speculators, and scientific researchers who do not acknowledge God, such as Voltaire, Hume, Rousseau, and Byron. Though what may be known of God was manifest in them and His invisible things, even His eternal power and Godhead, were clearly seen from the creation of the world by the things made, so that they are without excuse, when they knew God they glorified Him not as God nor were thankful. They rejected divine truth in its simplicity and purity for the wisdom of this world, and therefore became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened, professing themselves to be wise while becoming fools. They are under the training of the great enemy of God and man, the acknowledged leader of principalities and powers and rulers of darkness, sowing seeds of doubt, unbelief, and infidelity broadcast over the world, and their poisonous skeptical sentiments injure the mind like handling black coals. To bring their books into schools as study books, accept their authority in educating youth, give them precedence over the word of God, and place the Word in a corner aside as unessential is to hold the truth in unrighteousness, against which the wrath of God is revealed from heaven, and leaves students no better fitted for the service of God than before.

The verse applies to people who knew God by the witness of His Holy Spirit to testimonies borne to them and to whom the Lord sent light, but who did not glorify Him as God and were not thankful and did not receive the light, and so became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened. It applies to all who regard God as He is represented in Living Temple. Those who continue to accept the sophistry in that teaching will be led on and on in delusion, just as were many after the passing of the time in 1844.

Warning to Professed Believers

The whole first chapter of Romans is to be read and given in its full force to ministers, churches, and families claiming to be sons and daughters of God. It exposes holding the truth in unrighteousness while claiming belief yet denying it in works. It calls every family and every minister who preaches the Word to conversion, to sanctification through belief of the truth, and to cleansing from every species of iniquity. This is because the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men and women, and because the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith means the just shall live by faith.

The verse foretells a class of men who will arise to do this work of holding the truth in unrighteousness under the wrath of God revealed from heaven. Though they know God, they do not glorify Him as God and are not thankful, but become vain in imagination with darkened foolish hearts. The verse describes professed sons and daughters of God, especially fathers and mothers having names on the church record, who know God and know the truth yet do not glorify Him and are not thankful. They are not laborers together with God, but strangely neglect religion in home life and fail accountability as faithful exemplary believers. Their knowledge of the truth does not cleanse them from iniquity because they do not obey the truth in righteousness nor understand the work to be done through sanctifying grace in the home to sanctify the heart of the receiver. They hold truth as supposed belief while in works denying its practical sanctifying power, and need a solemn cleansing from every species of iniquity which they cannot neglect and be guiltless.

The verse shows unfaithfulness with God's entrusted gifts, the case of the servant who hid his Lord's treasure instead of using it to glorify God. Such unfaithfulness in those who know God but do not honor or thank Him, becoming futile in thinking and darkened in heart, will be met with shame in the judgment where wrath is revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness. The verse describes those in the present church represented by the five foolish virgins who have lamps but no oil in their vessels with their lamps. Though they profess to believe the truth and know God, they do not worship Him as God. Self in all its perverted attributes hardens the heart and closes the door so Christ cannot enter and abide with them, leaving them unconverted with hard hearts and unappreciative minds blinded by self-indulgence. Because of this they will die greater sinners than before they professed belief.

The passage containing the verse gives a true description of the world just before Christ's second coming, showing men and women given over to vile habits and corrupt lust. The only hope for those who practice such habits, if they value health here and salvation hereafter, is to leave them forever by determined resistance to temptation and corrupt indulgence. Long indulgence brings body and mind into subjection to Satan until self-control is lost and God leaves the sinner to ruin. He does not hear prayers that ask Him to do what the sinner has power to do, especially after vows repeatedly broken. Such self-destroyers are self-murderers who will never have eternal life, for heaven's purity will never be marred with their society, and those who abuse God-given health and life here would not rightly use immortal life in His kingdom.