Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
Claiming wisdom while rejecting the knowledge and truth of God is what makes people fools, for refusing to honor Him and give thanks leaves thinking empty and the heart darkened and turns away from truth. This belongs to the revealing of the gospel as power for salvation and righteousness by faith, and of wrath from heaven against holding truth in unrighteousness by knowing God yet not glorifying Him, becoming vain in imagination, and changing the glory of the incorruptible God into likenesses of corruptible man and birds and beasts and creeping things. It is seen in ancient thinkers who prided themselves on superior knowledge yet supposed the great things of the natural world are God, gathering only imperfect knowledge from created works and then foolishly exalting nature and its laws above God and worshiping the creature more than the Creator. Nature is not God and never was God, but His created work meant to draw minds to worship the Creator, for there is a personal Father and a personal Son distinct from nature, and nature marred by curse and sin cannot perfectly reveal His moral character or free from sin without Christ the express image of God. Intellectual knowledge and human learning apart from Christ are nothing, and cannot replace divine wisdom, pardon through Christ, and true understanding that knows God and His character. It stands as a solemn warning to professed sons and daughters of God who claim to believe and obey truth in righteousness while holding it as mere supposed belief and denying it in works without letting practical truth sanctify the heart and cleanse every iniquity in the home.
Meaning in Its Context
Professing to be wise while rejecting the knowledge and truth of God makes men fools, for refusal to honor Him leaves thinking vain and the heart darkened and leads away from truth. Although His power and divine nature are made known through creation, they do not glorify Him as God nor give thanks, but follow disloyal ways of their own and turn to images of created things. Worldly wisdom chosen in place of divine truth darkens the mind, and claiming wisdom while rejecting God is itself the folly.
The saying belongs to the revelation of the gospel of Christ as the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth, with the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith. Beside it stands the wrath of God revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men and women who hold the truth in unrighteousness. Knowing God yet not glorifying Him nor being thankful, they become vain in imagination with darkened foolish heart, and change the glory of the incorruptible God into images made like to corruptible man and to birds and fourfooted beasts and creeping things. They worship images made with their own hands, failing to thank God for what He provided and turning gifts that should have led to gratitude into objects of idolatry. The whole first chapter is therefore a true experience and solemn warning to professed sons and daughters of God, especially fathers, mothers, ministers and churches having names on the record but not laboring together with God, calling ministers who preach the Word to be sanctified through belief of the truth, churches to have a thorough work done in them, and every family to be converted and cleansed from every iniquity through sanctifying grace in the home, since mere knowledge of the truth without obedient exemplary works denies its power to sanctify the heart, and the chapter must be weighed, read until its meaning is grasped, marked verse by verse, and given in full force.
Prosperity and earthly treasures that should have led men to honor the Giver were worshiped in His place, and this corruption shows the same turning from God to folly. The prodigal son illustrates it in a life: mistaking freedom for self-indulgence and selfishly pursuing pleasure, he squanders wealth and gifts and youthful years in sinful pleasure, then becomes impoverished, degraded, miserable and enslaved by sin.
Intellectual knowledge and human learning apart from Christ are nothing, for God is the source of all wisdom and true understanding is knowing Him and His character and being shaped by Him. Those who claim wisdom while remaining willingly ignorant of what concerns eternal life become fools, since human learning cannot replace the wisdom of God or faith in the pardon offered through Christ. Claiming wisdom without a living connection with God leaves knowledge of Him incomplete and character unshaped by Him, and eloquence and reasoning alone cannot bring men nearer to God when they do not know Him.
Exalting Nature Above God
The verse describes the ancient philosophers who prided themselves on superior knowledge yet supposed the grand things of the natural world are God. In human wisdom the world knows not God, so its wise men gather only an imperfect knowledge of Him from His created works and then foolishly exalt nature and the laws of nature above nature's God. In doing so they change the glory of the incorruptible God into images made like corruptible man and birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things, and worship the creature more than the Creator.
Nature is not God and never was God, though God is in nature and the voice of nature testifies of God and bears witness to His power as His created work showing forth His glory. There is a personal Father and a personal Son distinct from nature, and nature is an open book declaring His glory and showing a God behind nature. Marred by curse and blight and sin, nature is imperfect and cannot give a perfect knowledge of God nor reveal His nature and character in moral perfection. Knowledge from nature alone, apart from Christ who is the express image of His person and came as a personal Saviour, does not elevate mind, soul and heart into conformity to God's will or ennoble the mind or free from sin, but makes men idolaters. Sin clouds understanding so that without God's word men cannot correctly interpret nature but distort its lessons and turn from the Creator, and those who think they can know God apart from Christ must first become fools in their own estimation before they can be wise.
Pagan philosophers once had a pure knowledge of God learned through nature, through their own necessities, and by reaching out from darkness for light in search of God as the first great cause. God speaks to the heathen in various ways recorded in Genesis. Degeneracy obscured that knowledge when they began to worship created things and God's handiwork in the natural world, the sun and moon and stars, so that professed wisdom became foolishness. That heathen worship stands in striking contrast to the revelation of God in Genesis. Even now the uneducated heathen still learns lessons through nature and necessity, and dissatisfied with darkness reaches out for light searching for God.
The verse covers the condition before the Flood, when people retaining much early vigor, long life, great stature and strength, and rare powers to plan and execute with wisdom and skill, used God's many rich gifts of gold and silver, precious stones and choice wood to glorify themselves and excel one another in beautifying dwellings with skillful workmanship. They fixed affections on the gifts instead of the Giver to gratify proud hearts in pleasure and wickedness, and not desiring to retain God in knowledge they denied His existence. They adored nature in place of the God of nature, glorified human genius, worshiped works of their own hands, taught children to bow to graven images, and set up idol altars in green fields and under trees in extensive evergreen groves dedicated to false gods, with beautiful gardens, long winding avenues, fruit-bearing trees, statuary and everything to delight the senses and minister to voluptuous desire to allure to worship. In Noah's day not all were outright idolaters, but many claimed to know God while practicing idolatry with grand images meant to represent Him before the world, and those claiming to acknowledge God took the lead in rejecting Noah's preaching and by influence led others to reject it. It also covers Balaam, whose wisdom became foolishness when idolatrous sentiments gained control of his mind, so that although he had some knowledge of Hebrew sacrificial offerings he hoped surpassing them with costly gifts would secure blessing for sinful projects, and by yielding to Satan he beclouded spiritual vision and brought blindness upon himself. More broadly it covers all whom Satan leads through vain philosophy to question and finally reject divine revelation and God until understanding is darkened and they are drawn into sin and moral debasement, ignoring the Creator despite evidence of His power and love in creation meant to draw worship to Himself and not to nature itself.
The verse condemns dishonoring intellect, reason and power of speech when scientific presentations lead minds from the real to the imaginary. Instead of looking from nature to nature's God, men offer idolatry to nature itself, though God uses nature as His servant to reveal His power and the objects of creation show forth His handiwork. It likewise condemns professed great men who claim wisdom to explain God by human searching and place His being in leaf and tree and flower, for their wisdom is foolish guesswork because searching cannot find God and their arguments only belittle Him. Exalting human reasoning beyond proper limits to judge the Creator or speculate about His nature, attributes and authority enters forbidden ground, yields nothing valuable, and endangers the soul. Man, the crowning object of creation, has most greatly dishonored God by refusing to obey His law, and in judgment such disobedient ones will stand ashamed and condemned. By contrast granite rocks, towering mountains, clefts, gorges, caves, valleys, trees, grass, buds and flowers day by day teach His love, power and laws lying at the foundation of all government in heaven and earth and should turn the mind to Him in gratitude. Worship of nature, though idolatry, strikes the senses as more sensible than worship of images bearing the mold of finite man and shrines of dead men, for if the rich tokens of matchless power in nature do not call the mind to the Creator and awaken dull hearts, images of dead men cannot do it.
Warning for the Last Days
The verse foretells a class who will arise to do the very work it outlines, holding the truth in unrighteousness under wrath revealed from heaven against ungodliness, knowing God yet not glorifying Him as God nor giving thanks, becoming vain in imagination with darkened foolish heart, and changing the glory of the incorruptible God into images of corruptible man and birds and beasts and creeping things. It gives a true description of the world just before the second appearing of Christ, as given over to vile habits and corrupt lust including long-indulged secret self-abuse. Even a naturally able man with more than common abilities loses self-control when these habits are long indulged, with all powers of body and mind brought into subjection to Satan and consumed upon his altar. The only hope for those so described, if they place any value upon health here and salvation hereafter, is to forever leave the habits by determined effort to resist temptation and refuse the corrupt indulgence. Those who continue until left of God, asking Him to do for them what is in their own power to do for themselves and time and again vowing and breaking vows, are left to work their own ruin with prayers unheard, and as destroyers of the health and life given them of God they will never have eternal life nor mar the purity of heaven with their society, for they would not make right use of health and immortal life were it granted in the everlasting kingdom.
The whole first chapter to which the verse belongs is a true experience and solemn warning to professed sons and daughters of God, especially fathers, mothers, ministers and churches having names on the church record but not laboring together with God. It reveals the gospel as the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes and righteousness revealed from faith to faith, and wrath from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men and women who hold the truth in unrighteousness. Professing wisdom means claiming to believe the truth and to obey it in righteousness while neglecting the solemn weighty work in the churches and in home life, and becoming fools means holding truth as mere supposed belief but denying it in works, failing to let practical truth sanctify the heart and cleanse every species of iniquity through sanctifying grace in the home, because mere knowledge does not cleanse. Such neglect cannot be continued without guilt, so ministers who preach the Word must be sanctified through belief of the truth, churches must have a thorough work done in them, and every family must be converted. The whole chapter must be weighed, read until its particular meaning is grasped, marked verse by verse, and given in its full force.
The verse applies to those who knew God by the witness of the Holy Spirit in testimonies borne to them and by light sent them, but who did not glorify Him as God, were not thankful, and did not receive the light, so they became vain in imaginations with foolish heart darkened. Claiming wisdom while refusing that light makes them fools who change the glory of the incorruptible God into images like corruptible man and birds and beasts and creeping things. It applies to all who regard God as He is represented in Living Temple, and continuing to accept the sophistry in that book leads on and on in delusion, as with those led in delusion after the passing of the time in 1844.
The same becoming fools while professing wisdom is seen when pagan philosophers who once had pure knowledge of God learned through nature, through their own necessities, and by reaching from darkness for light in search of the first great cause, with various ways God speaks to the heathen recorded in Genesis, suffered degeneracy to obscure that knowledge when they began to worship created things such as the sun, moon and stars, so that the revelation of God in Genesis stands in striking contrast to heathen ideas. That foolishness continues today when men declare that Christ's teachings about God cannot be proved from the things of the natural world and claim a lack of harmony between nature and Old and New Testament Scripture, whereas no such lack exists, for God's word is out of harmony with human science but in perfect accord with His own created science. Those who claim to be Christians and profess to believe the truth, yet drink at the polluted fountains of infidelity and by teaching and example draw others away from the cold, snow-waters of Lebanon, are fools even while they claim to be wise.
Claiming wisdom while rejecting the knowledge and truth of God is what makes people fools, for refusing to honor Him and give thanks leaves thinking empty and the heart darkened and turns away from truth. This belongs to the revealing of the gospel as power for salvation and righteousness by faith, and of wrath from heaven against holding truth in unrighteousness by knowing God yet not glorifying Him, becoming vain in imagination, and changing the glory of the incorruptible God into likenesses of corruptible man and birds and beasts and creeping things. It is seen in ancient thinkers who prided themselves on superior knowledge yet supposed the great things of the natural world are God, gathering only imperfect knowledge from created works and then foolishly exalting nature and its laws above God and worshiping the creature more than the Creator. Nature is not God and never was God, but His created work meant to draw minds to worship the Creator, for there is a personal Father and a personal Son distinct from nature, and nature marred by curse and sin cannot perfectly reveal His moral character or free from sin without Christ the express image of God. Intellectual knowledge and human learning apart from Christ are nothing, and cannot replace divine wisdom, pardon through Christ, and true understanding that knows God and His character. It stands as a solemn warning to professed sons and daughters of God who claim to believe and obey truth in righteousness while holding it as mere supposed belief and denying it in works without letting practical truth sanctify the heart and cleanse every iniquity in the home.
Meaning in Its Context
Professing to be wise while rejecting the knowledge and truth of God makes men fools, for refusal to honor Him leaves thinking vain and the heart darkened and leads away from truth. Although His power and divine nature are made known through creation, they do not glorify Him as God nor give thanks, but follow disloyal ways of their own and turn to images of created things. Worldly wisdom chosen in place of divine truth darkens the mind, and claiming wisdom while rejecting God is itself the folly.
The saying belongs to the revelation of the gospel of Christ as the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth, with the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith. Beside it stands the wrath of God revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men and women who hold the truth in unrighteousness. Knowing God yet not glorifying Him nor being thankful, they become vain in imagination with darkened foolish heart, and change the glory of the incorruptible God into images made like to corruptible man and to birds and fourfooted beasts and creeping things. They worship images made with their own hands, failing to thank God for what He provided and turning gifts that should have led to gratitude into objects of idolatry. The whole first chapter is therefore a true experience and solemn warning to professed sons and daughters of God, especially fathers, mothers, ministers and churches having names on the record but not laboring together with God, calling ministers who preach the Word to be sanctified through belief of the truth, churches to have a thorough work done in them, and every family to be converted and cleansed from every iniquity through sanctifying grace in the home, since mere knowledge of the truth without obedient exemplary works denies its power to sanctify the heart, and the chapter must be weighed, read until its meaning is grasped, marked verse by verse, and given in full force.
Prosperity and earthly treasures that should have led men to honor the Giver were worshiped in His place, and this corruption shows the same turning from God to folly. The prodigal son illustrates it in a life: mistaking freedom for self-indulgence and selfishly pursuing pleasure, he squanders wealth and gifts and youthful years in sinful pleasure, then becomes impoverished, degraded, miserable and enslaved by sin.
Intellectual knowledge and human learning apart from Christ are nothing, for God is the source of all wisdom and true understanding is knowing Him and His character and being shaped by Him. Those who claim wisdom while remaining willingly ignorant of what concerns eternal life become fools, since human learning cannot replace the wisdom of God or faith in the pardon offered through Christ. Claiming wisdom without a living connection with God leaves knowledge of Him incomplete and character unshaped by Him, and eloquence and reasoning alone cannot bring men nearer to God when they do not know Him.
Exalting Nature Above God
The verse describes the ancient philosophers who prided themselves on superior knowledge yet supposed the grand things of the natural world are God. In human wisdom the world knows not God, so its wise men gather only an imperfect knowledge of Him from His created works and then foolishly exalt nature and the laws of nature above nature's God. In doing so they change the glory of the incorruptible God into images made like corruptible man and birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things, and worship the creature more than the Creator.
Nature is not God and never was God, though God is in nature and the voice of nature testifies of God and bears witness to His power as His created work showing forth His glory. There is a personal Father and a personal Son distinct from nature, and nature is an open book declaring His glory and showing a God behind nature. Marred by curse and blight and sin, nature is imperfect and cannot give a perfect knowledge of God nor reveal His nature and character in moral perfection. Knowledge from nature alone, apart from Christ who is the express image of His person and came as a personal Saviour, does not elevate mind, soul and heart into conformity to God's will or ennoble the mind or free from sin, but makes men idolaters. Sin clouds understanding so that without God's word men cannot correctly interpret nature but distort its lessons and turn from the Creator, and those who think they can know God apart from Christ must first become fools in their own estimation before they can be wise.
Pagan philosophers once had a pure knowledge of God learned through nature, through their own necessities, and by reaching out from darkness for light in search of God as the first great cause. God speaks to the heathen in various ways recorded in Genesis. Degeneracy obscured that knowledge when they began to worship created things and God's handiwork in the natural world, the sun and moon and stars, so that professed wisdom became foolishness. That heathen worship stands in striking contrast to the revelation of God in Genesis. Even now the uneducated heathen still learns lessons through nature and necessity, and dissatisfied with darkness reaches out for light searching for God.
The verse covers the condition before the Flood, when people retaining much early vigor, long life, great stature and strength, and rare powers to plan and execute with wisdom and skill, used God's many rich gifts of gold and silver, precious stones and choice wood to glorify themselves and excel one another in beautifying dwellings with skillful workmanship. They fixed affections on the gifts instead of the Giver to gratify proud hearts in pleasure and wickedness, and not desiring to retain God in knowledge they denied His existence. They adored nature in place of the God of nature, glorified human genius, worshiped works of their own hands, taught children to bow to graven images, and set up idol altars in green fields and under trees in extensive evergreen groves dedicated to false gods, with beautiful gardens, long winding avenues, fruit-bearing trees, statuary and everything to delight the senses and minister to voluptuous desire to allure to worship. In Noah's day not all were outright idolaters, but many claimed to know God while practicing idolatry with grand images meant to represent Him before the world, and those claiming to acknowledge God took the lead in rejecting Noah's preaching and by influence led others to reject it. It also covers Balaam, whose wisdom became foolishness when idolatrous sentiments gained control of his mind, so that although he had some knowledge of Hebrew sacrificial offerings he hoped surpassing them with costly gifts would secure blessing for sinful projects, and by yielding to Satan he beclouded spiritual vision and brought blindness upon himself. More broadly it covers all whom Satan leads through vain philosophy to question and finally reject divine revelation and God until understanding is darkened and they are drawn into sin and moral debasement, ignoring the Creator despite evidence of His power and love in creation meant to draw worship to Himself and not to nature itself.
The verse condemns dishonoring intellect, reason and power of speech when scientific presentations lead minds from the real to the imaginary. Instead of looking from nature to nature's God, men offer idolatry to nature itself, though God uses nature as His servant to reveal His power and the objects of creation show forth His handiwork. It likewise condemns professed great men who claim wisdom to explain God by human searching and place His being in leaf and tree and flower, for their wisdom is foolish guesswork because searching cannot find God and their arguments only belittle Him. Exalting human reasoning beyond proper limits to judge the Creator or speculate about His nature, attributes and authority enters forbidden ground, yields nothing valuable, and endangers the soul. Man, the crowning object of creation, has most greatly dishonored God by refusing to obey His law, and in judgment such disobedient ones will stand ashamed and condemned. By contrast granite rocks, towering mountains, clefts, gorges, caves, valleys, trees, grass, buds and flowers day by day teach His love, power and laws lying at the foundation of all government in heaven and earth and should turn the mind to Him in gratitude. Worship of nature, though idolatry, strikes the senses as more sensible than worship of images bearing the mold of finite man and shrines of dead men, for if the rich tokens of matchless power in nature do not call the mind to the Creator and awaken dull hearts, images of dead men cannot do it.
Warning for the Last Days
The verse foretells a class who will arise to do the very work it outlines, holding the truth in unrighteousness under wrath revealed from heaven against ungodliness, knowing God yet not glorifying Him as God nor giving thanks, becoming vain in imagination with darkened foolish heart, and changing the glory of the incorruptible God into images of corruptible man and birds and beasts and creeping things. It gives a true description of the world just before the second appearing of Christ, as given over to vile habits and corrupt lust including long-indulged secret self-abuse. Even a naturally able man with more than common abilities loses self-control when these habits are long indulged, with all powers of body and mind brought into subjection to Satan and consumed upon his altar. The only hope for those so described, if they place any value upon health here and salvation hereafter, is to forever leave the habits by determined effort to resist temptation and refuse the corrupt indulgence. Those who continue until left of God, asking Him to do for them what is in their own power to do for themselves and time and again vowing and breaking vows, are left to work their own ruin with prayers unheard, and as destroyers of the health and life given them of God they will never have eternal life nor mar the purity of heaven with their society, for they would not make right use of health and immortal life were it granted in the everlasting kingdom.
The whole first chapter to which the verse belongs is a true experience and solemn warning to professed sons and daughters of God, especially fathers, mothers, ministers and churches having names on the church record but not laboring together with God. It reveals the gospel as the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes and righteousness revealed from faith to faith, and wrath from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men and women who hold the truth in unrighteousness. Professing wisdom means claiming to believe the truth and to obey it in righteousness while neglecting the solemn weighty work in the churches and in home life, and becoming fools means holding truth as mere supposed belief but denying it in works, failing to let practical truth sanctify the heart and cleanse every species of iniquity through sanctifying grace in the home, because mere knowledge does not cleanse. Such neglect cannot be continued without guilt, so ministers who preach the Word must be sanctified through belief of the truth, churches must have a thorough work done in them, and every family must be converted. The whole chapter must be weighed, read until its particular meaning is grasped, marked verse by verse, and given in its full force.
The verse applies to those who knew God by the witness of the Holy Spirit in testimonies borne to them and by light sent them, but who did not glorify Him as God, were not thankful, and did not receive the light, so they became vain in imaginations with foolish heart darkened. Claiming wisdom while refusing that light makes them fools who change the glory of the incorruptible God into images like corruptible man and birds and beasts and creeping things. It applies to all who regard God as He is represented in Living Temple, and continuing to accept the sophistry in that book leads on and on in delusion, as with those led in delusion after the passing of the time in 1844.
The same becoming fools while professing wisdom is seen when pagan philosophers who once had pure knowledge of God learned through nature, through their own necessities, and by reaching from darkness for light in search of the first great cause, with various ways God speaks to the heathen recorded in Genesis, suffered degeneracy to obscure that knowledge when they began to worship created things such as the sun, moon and stars, so that the revelation of God in Genesis stands in striking contrast to heathen ideas. That foolishness continues today when men declare that Christ's teachings about God cannot be proved from the things of the natural world and claim a lack of harmony between nature and Old and New Testament Scripture, whereas no such lack exists, for God's word is out of harmony with human science but in perfect accord with His own created science. Those who claim to be Christians and profess to believe the truth, yet drink at the polluted fountains of infidelity and by teaching and example draw others away from the cold, snow-waters of Lebanon, are fools even while they claim to be wise.