Romans 1:23, commentary and pictures

The verse describes exchanging the glory of the immortal God for likenesses of mortal people and of birds and four-footed animals and reptiles.
Those it condemns knew God through what is plain within them and through His eternal power and divine nature clearly seen in created things, yet they refused to honor Him as God or give thanks, suppressed the truth in unrighteousness, grew vain in reasoning with darkened hearts, claimed wisdom while becoming fools, and stand without excuse under God's wrath revealed from heaven against all ungodliness.
It is worshiping the creature more than the Creator, exalting nature and its laws above nature's God and treating grand things in the natural world as if they were God, when they only bear witness to His glory and power.
Knowledge of God drawn from nature alone is imperfect and cannot ennoble the mind into conformity to His will, and human wisdom apart from Christ, who is the express image of the Father, ends in idolatry.
Such rejection debases character and opens the way to unrestrained evil passion and foul license under Satan's sway, so with the whole first chapter of Romans the verse calls ministers, churches, and every family to be sanctified through belief of the truth and converted in home life.

Verse Meaning and Setting

The exchange at the heart of the verse is the glory of the incorruptible God traded for an image made like corruptible man and birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things. Those described knew God because what may be known of Him is plain within them and His invisible eternal power and divine nature are clearly perceived through created things from creation, yet they refused to glorify Him as God or give thanks, became vain and empty in reasoning with darkened foolish hearts, professed themselves wise yet became fools, suppressed the truth in unrighteousness, are without excuse, and stand under the wrath of God revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness. The verse belongs to the whole first chapter of Romans, which is to be weighed, read, taken particular notice of in all it specifies, grasped in its particular meaning, and given in its full force as a true experience outlined by Paul.

In Noah's day this idolatry included making grand images meant to represent God before the world, so they were not all absolute idolaters. The class professing to acknowledge God took the lead in rejecting Noah's preaching and by influence led others to reject it. The antediluvians fulfilled the verse by turning God's many rich gifts into a curse to glorify themselves, employing gold and silver, precious stones and choice wood to build and beautify dwellings to excel one another, reveling in pleasure and wickedness to gratify proud hearts, not desiring to retain God in knowledge, denying His existence, and fixing affections on gifts instead of the Giver. They adored nature in place of the God of nature, glorified human genius, worshiped the works of their own hands, taught their children to bow down to graven images, set up altars of idols in green fields and under trees, dedicated extensive evergreen groves to false gods, and joined them to beautiful gardens with long winding avenues, fruit-bearing trees, statuary, and all that could delight the senses and minister to lust, thus alluring people to participate in idolatrous worship.

The ancient pagan philosophers once had a pure knowledge of God, but degeneracy obscured it when in human wisdom professing superior knowledge they changed His glory into likenesses of mortal people and birds and animals and reptiles and changed the truth of God into a lie. In that wisdom they interpret nature apart from God, gather only imperfect knowledge from created works, exalt nature and the laws of nature above nature's God, and suppose grand things in the natural world are God when they are not God but only bear testimony and show forth His glory and power, thus worshiping the creature more than the Creator, which makes men idolaters. Those who seek knowledge of God from nature apart from Christ, who is the express image of the Father's person, obtain only an imperfect knowledge that does not elevate mind, soul, and heart into conformity to God's will, and perfect knowledge cannot come from nature because nature itself is imperfect and under curse and blight, though even marred it still testifies to a skillful Master Artist omnipotent in power and great in goodness, mercy, and love, proving there is a God behind nature who is blessed forever. The uncorruptible God is a living, personal God, not a perfume or something intangible, who through Jesus Christ created man and endowed him with intelligence and power, and degeneracy turned philosophers to worship His handiwork in the sun, the moon, and the stars, while the uneducated heathen still learns through nature and through his own necessities, and dissatisfied with darkness reaches out for light searching for God as the first great cause, and God speaks to him in various ways recorded in Genesis, yet the ideas of the heathen stand in striking contrast to the revelation of God in Genesis.

The chapter including the verse gives a true description of the world just before the second appearing of Christ. The vile habits it describes are corrupt lust and self-abuse that bring body and mind into subjection to Satan and consume them, destroying health in this life and forfeiting salvation hereafter, and those who indulge them long lose self-control, break repeated vows to God, are left of God to work their own ruin, and God does not hear their prayers for deliverance while they refuse to do what is in their power by determined resistance and entire abandonment. Those who destroy themselves by their own acts and continue to abuse the health and life given them will never have eternal life and never mar heaven's purity with their society, for they would not make right use of health and immortal life in God's everlasting kingdom, and their only hope for health here and salvation hereafter is to forever leave these habits. The verse condemns regarding God as He is represented in Living Temple, and those who knew God by the witness of His Holy Spirit through testimonies borne to them yet refused the light sent them, and all who continue to accept the sophistry in that book, will be led on and on in delusion just as were many after the passing of the time in 1844.

Worshiping Creation Instead of God

The verse describes exchanging worship of the immortal Creator for worship of images shaped by human hands from earthly materials, denying God and withholding thanks for what He made and provided. The treasures He gave to enrich people and lead them to glorify their generous Giver were instead given the honor due to Him, with created things worshiped and God rejected. Gold and silver, precious stones and choice wood, trees and groves were turned from benefits into objects and settings of idolatry, with human workmanship treated as gods. Altars of idols were set up in green fields and under trees, extensive evergreen groves were dedicated to false gods, and to these were joined beautiful gardens with long winding avenues, fruit-bearing trees, statuary and all that could delight the senses and minister to lust, alluring people into idolatrous worship.

It means interpreting nature apart from God by human wisdom, exalting nature and the laws of nature above nature's God. Grand things in the natural world were supposed to be God when they are not God but only bear testimony and show forth His glory and power, so that worshiping the creature more than the Creator makes men idolaters. The uncorruptible God is a living, personal, infinite God, not a perfume or something intangible, who through Jesus Christ created man and endowed him with intelligence and power and reason and speech. Idolatry shows blindness to His power, majesty and glory and forgetfulness of man's divine relationship as formed in the image of his Maker.

Human wisdom and knowledge apart from Christ cannot bring men to know God. Knowledge of God drawn from nature alone is imperfect, giving an inadequate view of His character and attributes that fails to ennoble the mind and to elevate mind, soul and heart into conformity to His will, and without accepting God's revelation in Christ, who is the express image of the Father's person, it leads to idolatry. Perfect knowledge cannot come from nature because nature itself is imperfect and under curse and blight. Even marred, it still testifies to a skillful Master Artist omnipotent in power and great in goodness, mercy and love, proving there is a God behind nature who is blessed forever.

God uses nature as one of His servants to reveal His power, and objects of creation show forth His handiwork to lead from nature to nature's God and direct hearts to the Creator, not to be worshiped. Scientific presentations that lead minds away from the real to the imaginary hide God in His true greatness. Every part of the house He built for man, in granite rocks, mountains, clefts, gulches, gorges, valleys, trees, grass, buds and flowers, bears unmistakable tokens of the great Architect and daily teaches the Father's love and power and His laws to govern nature that lie at the foundation of all government in heaven and earth, to call the mind to the Creator and awaken gratitude; if these rich tokens of matchless power do not do this, images of men cannot do it. Worship of nature, the works of the divine hand, is also thankless idolatry, yet it strikes the senses as more sensible than worship of images and shrines of dead men bearing the mold of finite man. To adore what is no higher than man himself and may be symbolized by his own handiwork, to bow down to revolting and senseless objects, destroys the efficacy of all worship because man cannot be elevated by it.

The uneducated heathen still learns through nature and through his own necessities, and dissatisfied with darkness reaches out for light searching for God as the first great cause. God speaks to him in various ways recorded in Genesis, including worship of God's handiwork in the sun, the moon and the stars, yet this stands in striking contrast to the revelation of God in Genesis. Man is the crowning object of God's creation yet has most greatly dishonored God. In the judgment human beings will stand before God ashamed and condemned because though given intellect and reason and power of speech they would not obey God's law.

Corruption and Present Appeal

Exchanging the glory of the incorruptible God for images debases human character, and once men do this the way is opened for foul license, the evil passions of the heart are left unrestrained, and Satan has full sway. It was Satan's plot to wrench away God's chosen people by leading them into changing the glory of the infinite God into a graven image, a beast or a reptile, even while God was proclaiming His law. The setting of the verse is reflected in a world where people are led to question and disbelieve God's revelation and existence, to transgress God's law and become morally degraded, with sin made attractive to bring about their ruin.

The vile habits described with this changing of God's glory into corrupt indulgence are corrupt lust and self-abuse that bring body and mind into subjection to Satan and consume them, destroying health in this life and forfeiting salvation hereafter. Those who indulge them long lose self-control, break repeated vows made to God, are left of God to work their own ruin, and God does not hear their prayers for deliverance while they refuse to do what is in their power by determined resistance and entire abandonment. Those who destroy themselves by their own acts and continue to abuse the health and life given them will never have eternal life and will never mar heaven's purity with their society, for they would not make right use of health and immortal life in God's everlasting kingdom. Their only hope for health here and salvation hereafter is to forever leave these habits.

This idolatry belongs to the disobedient and disloyal who choose their own ways instead of obeying God, including professed believers who fail to obey the truth in righteousness and fall into every species of iniquity. They claim to believe the truth and hold it as supposed belief while in works denying the practical truth that if believed would sanctify the receiver. With the rest of the chapter the verse calls 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. It especially charges fathers and mothers and many families having names on the church record who are not laborers together with God to seek the Lord and awaken to the responsibilities of home life strangely left out of religious experience, a work they cannot neglect and be guiltless, since mere knowledge of the truth will not cleanse from iniquity without the sanctifying grace of God in the home.