Romans 1:24, commentary and pictures

God gives people up by withdrawing His restraint, protection, and Spirit and leaving them to the lusts of their own hearts and their own devices, so that indulged passion controls them to uncleanness and the dishonoring of their own bodies, reaping the consequences of their own sin. Those so abandoned are those who claim wisdom yet reject God's revelation and rule, exchanging His glory and truth for images and worshiping created things and the works of human hands rather than the Creator. Such idolatry degrades the worshiper, for adoring what is no higher than himself opens the way to foul license, unrestrained evil passions, dishonored bodies, and the full sway of Satan. This abandonment to lust, in which sin ceases to appear sinful, is a true description of the world before Christ's second appearing and of the sins that bring divine judgment. Therefore the whole first chapter of Romans must be read and weighed by every family, father and mother, minister and church, for mere knowledge of the truth does not cleanse those who deny it in home life, and cleansing from uncleanness comes only through sanctifying grace received in the heart and home.

What Giving Up Means

To be given up means that God withdraws restraint and protection and withdraws His Spirit and leaves people to themselves, to the lusts of their own hearts and to their own devices. When mercy is persistently rejected and the Spirit resisted and God's rule refused, indulged passions take control and lead into uncleanness and the dishonoring of the body between themselves, so that people reap the consequences of their own sin. This giving up is not God acting as an executioner, but God removing protection from evil and its consequences. It is the end of persistent indulgence in corrupt habits when people repeatedly refuse to resist them, being left to the ruin their choices bring, and it is a true description of the world before Christ's second appearing. As sin ceases to appear sinful, those thus left give free rein to lust and practice the sins that brought judgment on the heathen.

Rejection of God and transgression of His law bring moral corruption, in which sin darkens and degrades humanity and turns people from the purity and dignity in which they were created to uncleanness and dishonorable passions. To be given up can also mean to be given to the control of evil spirits when God's claims are resisted and Satan's temptations are yielded to. Persistent rejection of warnings and invitations leads to abandonment to blindness and its consequences, where under Satan's control people become stubborn and that stubbornness brings ruin.

God does not leave a person wholly at once, but in measure withdraws restraining power from the agencies of evil and permits events to take their natural course. When parents or rulers neglect the duty of punishing iniquity, God Himself takes the case in hand, so that a train of circumstances arises in which sin punishes sin. So it was when David failed to punish Amnon's crime and Amnon continued impenitent after long forbearance, and the Lord did not restrain Absalom from cutting him down in death. Likewise when a person lets go of hold upon God and acts in his own strength, God leaves him to uncleanness through the lusts of his own heart. Indulging stimulants and gratifying passions not held under the control of reason sacrifices and perverts reason, bringing him very near utter ruin to strange and sinful acts, dishonoring his own body and God's cause, disgracing himself and his family, and lowering himself to the level of the beast in debased passion.

Idolatry That Invites Abandonment

Romans 1:24 belongs to the account of those who profess wisdom while rejecting divine revelation and rule, and in that rejection become fools who exchange the glory and truth of God for images and turn to worship created things and the works of human hands rather than the Creator. That turning from the Creator to the creature corrupts and increasingly debases, so that gifts placed on earth for human benefit become misused for idolatry when God is put out of the heart. In human wisdom the world does not know God, and wise men who seek Him only in His created works gather merely an imperfect knowledge. Nature even in its marred state declares a God behind nature and teaches of a skillful Master Artist omnipotent in power and great in goodness, mercy and love, yet nature itself is imperfect and under curse and blight from sin and cannot reveal the divine nature and character in moral perfection. To exalt nature and the laws of nature above nature's God is therefore idolatry, and perfect knowledge is gained only through Christ as the express image of His person.

God uses nature as His servant to reveal His power through the objects of His creation, and mighty structures in granite rocks, mountains, gulches, valleys, trees, grass, buds and flowers teach day by day His love and power and the laws lying at the foundation of all government in heaven and earth. When those rich tokens of matchless power do not call the mind to the Creator of heaven and earth and awaken no gratitude, hearts become thankless and idolatrous in worshiping nature and the works of the divine hand. That worship grows still less sensible when men require images bearing the mold and impress of finite man and shrines of dead men, which cannot lead dull hearts to the great and living God. Of all created things man, the crowning object of creation endowed with intellect and reason and power of speech, most greatly dishonors God by disobeying His law, and in the judgment human beings will stand before Him ashamed and condemned for that disobedience.

Idolatry destroys the efficacy of all worship and degrades the worshiper, for man cannot be elevated by adoring what is no higher than himself and may be symbolized by his own handiwork. When men are so blinded to the power, majesty and glory of the infinite God as to represent Him by a graven image, or even by a beast or reptile, and so forget their divine relationship formed in the image of their Maker as to bow to revolting and senseless objects, the way is opened for foul license. Then the evil passions of the heart become unrestrained, bodies are dishonored, Satan gains full sway, and by this means even God's chosen people are wrenched away in the very face of Heaven. The verse thus marks a degeneracy that obscured a once-pure knowledge of God, for many pagan philosophers once possessed pure knowledge but worship of created things began to obscure it, so that God's handiwork in the natural world, the sun, moon and stars, came to be worshiped, in contrast to the revelation of God in Genesis. Even now the uneducated heathen learns through nature and through his own necessities, and dissatisfied with darkness reaches out for light searching for God as the first great cause, to whom God speaks in various ways recorded in Genesis.

The same abandonment is illustrated when rich gifts are used to glorify self instead of the Giver, as with the antediluvians upon whom God had bestowed many rich gifts but who fixed their affections on the gifts instead of the Giver. They sought only to gratify the desires of their own proud hearts and reveled in scenes of pleasure and wickedness, and not desiring to retain God in their knowledge they denied His existence, adored nature in place of the God of nature, glorified human genius, worshiped the works of their own hands, and taught their children to bow to graven images. They set up altars of idols in green fields and under goodly trees, dedicating evergreen groves to false gods with beautiful gardens, winding avenues, fruit-bearing trees, statuary and everything to delight the senses and minister to voluptuous desires, thus alluring to idolatrous worship to the dishonoring of their own bodies. So also prosperity and earthly treasures are worshiped instead of leading people to glorify their giver, and beautiful trees and groves given for benefit are misused for idolatry when God is put out of the heart. Apart from this wider context of exchanging truth for idolatry, the specific statement about being given up to uncleanness stands unexplained by the general description alone. The claim that teachings about God cannot be substantiated by the things of the natural world or that nature is not in harmony with Old and New Testament Scripture is false, for the word of the God of heaven is not in harmony with human science but is in perfect accord with His own created science.

Warning to Church and Home

The verse is part of a true description of the world before Christ's second appearing, where God gives people over to bodily impurity driven by their own lusts to the dishonor of their bodies. When people reject God's rule and commands they are given over to the lusts they choose, giving themselves over to lust and to sins that bring divine judgment. As sin ceases to appear sinful, people give free rein to lust and practice the sins that brought judgment on the heathen. In persistent indulgence in corrupt habits, when people repeatedly refuse to resist them, they can be left to the ruin their choices bring.

The whole first chapter of Romans must be read, weighed, marked, and taken in its full force by every family, father and mother, minister, and church. It reveals the wrath of God from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men and women who hold the truth in unrighteousness and fail to obey the truth in righteousness. It calls for the conversion of every family, the sanctification of ministers who preach the Word through belief of the truth, a thorough work in the churches, and cleansing from every species of iniquity. That cleansing is needed especially through sanctifying grace in the home life where religious duty has been neglected.

The verse warns fathers, mothers, and all families who claim to be sons and daughters of God and have their names on the church record. It gives their true experience when they are not laborers together with God and fail accountability as faithful, exemplary believers by strangely neglecting obedience to the truth in righteousness in home life. Mere knowledge of the truth does not cleanse them, and those who hold truth as supposed belief but deny practical truth in works remain guilty under its charge. Cleansing from uncleanness, including the uncleanness to which God gives men up through the lusts of their own hearts, comes only through sanctifying grace in the home sanctifying the heart of the receiver.

The verse applies when men who have been connected with God for years show no marked change in character but become more confirmed in objectionable traits like Judas. Such ones still profess to keep the law of God and are very particular in some points while neglecting the weightier matters of mercy and love of God. When corrupt, self-exalting people refuse opportunity to reform and will not heed correction, God leaves them to their own sinful, selfish ways to follow their own course. They may be removed from the church because their influence brought displeasure upon it.

When a person has had light and refuses to follow it and disregards it, the Lord leaves him to his own devices, to self-will and the carnal promptings of his own mind by withdrawing His Spirit. This is true of one who persists in irreligion despite instruction from youth and proves a tempter to others, and of one who keeps an association that does not help morals or strengthen spirituality by placing himself in the way of temptation. Unless he changes, confesses his sins, is converted, and becomes thoroughly converted, he has no excuse. He becomes weaker and still weaker in moral power, ending in his own ruin.