Romans 1:28, commentary and pictures

To refuse to retain God in knowledge is to deliberately push Him out of mind and heart to escape accountability and pursue self-pleasing, forgetting His goodness, thanklessness for His gifts, and corrupting what He gave into idolatry and self-service. When people persist in that refusal and resist light and opportunity to reform, God gives them over by withdrawing His restraining Spirit and protection, leaving them to reap what they have sown and be filled with the consequences of their own selfish choices. That giving over darkens and hardens the heart into blindness, so sin seems harmless and righteousness undesirable, and lustful, lawless conduct follows under Satan's control. The verse describes the mingling of the sons of Seth with the descendants of Cain, the world before the Flood, and the builders of Babel, who knew God yet would not listen or keep Him in knowledge but fixed their minds on prosperity, pleasure, and corrupt marrying until leprosy-like sin spread abroad. The same refusal marks the last days and the whole first chapter of Romans, which must be read in full as God's wrath against holding truth in unrighteousness, warning churches, ministers, and families that knowledge that does not sanctify the home and cleanse from iniquity leaves sinners weighed and found wanting.

Refusing to Retain God

To retain God in knowledge is to love Him by forming a conception of His goodness and excellence, by knowing His will, by appreciating His character, and by coming to know more of Him, and this is essential to eternal well-being because His law is the transcript of His character. To disregard that law in order to use God-given powers in self-service is to join those described in the verse. The verse describes sinners seeking happiness by forgetting God and separating themselves from Him, like the prodigal son taking God's gifts without gratitude or loving service and spending life and powers on self-indulgence. Such a self-centered life squanders what God has given, degrades the mind, and enslaves the person to earthly desires.

Refusing to keep God in knowledge means denying the Creator, giving no thanks for what He provided, and worshiping idols and images made by human hands. That refusal corrupts the good things He placed on earth for human benefit, turning even groves and beautiful trees into settings for idol worship. It leads to a corrupt mind and sinful conduct. Those who separate from God to exalt themselves do not love to keep God in knowledge, as seen in claiming greater intellect than Jesus Christ. That claim reflects the same self-exaltation by which Satan despised God's law and was expelled from heaven.

Putting God out of knowledge involves a false picture of His character, for Satan works to make people forget God so that they fear, shun, or hate Him. This confusion helps him capture them, erase God's image in them, and impress his own likeness and spirit upon them. Sinful hearts also project their own attributes onto God, and when people cease to recognize God this forgetting inclines them more strongly to evil, with the false picture strengthening the power of sin. Refusal to retain God shows itself in measuring themselves among themselves and comparing themselves with themselves, each seeking to excel the other. It shows itself in refusing to pray because prayer is against manner and custom, in treating the Lord as One afar off, in taking no notice of Him, and in saying in the heart that He does not see and has no knowledge of human inventions, a refusal that marked people in the days of Noah and marks those represented by the rich man now.

Like Adam, people separate themselves from God through wicked works and choose not to behold Him or keep Him in their knowledge, turning away and hiding from Him. Yet they cannot escape His sight, for darkness is as light to Him and He knows every secret thing. Keeping God in the thoughts and enjoying communion with Him in this life is the fitting preparation for heaven, for this world is the only school where preparation for the higher grade can be received. Those who do not love keeping God in mind here and who find subjection to God irksome are educating their tastes by the self-pleasing things they choose and love, so that heavenly discipline would be a restraint to them and they would never have enjoyment with Christ in the future life. God should be the object of the soul's highest reverence, love, and fear, and the soul must be brought under discipline to Him.

The verse applies to professed believers and workers who encourage putting God out of knowledge while making pretense to godliness. They claim to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness but let selfish purposes and projects, bartering and haggling for little or large advantage, shut out the view of eternal realities. Such conduct barters away security to the kingdom of God, valuing that kingdom less than Judas valued his Lord.

Given Over to Reprobation

God bears long with sinners and grants opportunity for repentance before giving them over, as Amnon was granted two years to repent. When parents or rulers neglect the duty of punishing iniquity He takes the case in hand, withdrawing His restraining power in measure from the agencies of evil and permitting events to take their natural course without restraint. In this way a train of circumstances arises in which sin is punished with sin, and the impenitent are cut down with guilt upon them to await the tribunal of the Judgment.

Being given over to a reprobate mind means He withdraws His restraint and leaves people to reap what they have sown. As the Spirit is persistently resisted and finally withdrawn, people lose the power that checked evil passions and the protection that held back Satan's malice. When they refuse to keep God in knowledge and reject light and opportunity to reform they are left to their own ways to follow selfish desires and be filled with the consequences of their choices.

People come under this giving over by resisting the Holy Spirit step by step almost imperceptibly, like the Jewish nation, until spiritual blindness takes the place of light once enjoyed. Under unbelief, envy, and criticism former evidences become questioning and doubt. When the Spirit is grieved away and departs they do not know to what lengths Satan will lead them but unknowingly do step by step what they once correctly viewed as decided sin, with Satan close beside them as chosen companion. They become filled with all unrighteousness and wicked traits while knowing the judgment of God that such deeds are worthy of death, yet doing them and taking pleasure in those who do them. Every counsel, reproof, entreaty, and solemn warning of Scripture is misapplied, perverted, misconstrued, laughed at, and ridiculed, so that pleading with them is in vain as idle tales, and they despise the Spirit and disobey commandments they once vindicated.

When people refuse to keep God in knowledge their heart becomes senseless and is darkened, and He gives them over to a blind and hardened mind, to a blinded mind and hardened heart, to blindness of mind. This blindness is seen in greedily accepting falsehood because it agrees with what they want to believe and in using influence to resist truth and evidence of truth. Yet those deceived but remaining teachable and truly seeking truth, even when deceived through misplaced trust, can recognize the inconsistencies of their guides and the error, and discover the truth.

When people reject God and refuse to keep Him in knowledge He gives them over to a depraved and corrupt mind and sinful conduct. Rejecting His precepts makes sin no longer seen as sinful and harmless in appearance, and righteousness no longer desirable. Those who will not submit to God become unfit to govern themselves, and lustful, lawless conduct follows, as among the heathen who came under judgment.

When people persistently reject God's warnings and invitations He gives them over to blindness and its consequences. Their rejection leaves them vulnerable to Satan's control, fostering stubbornness that brings ruin. He gives men up to their own perverted imaginations when they are determined to walk in the way they have chosen. When messages sent from God are brought before them and they make no response, are unaffected, are too proud to admit their wrong course of action, and brace themselves to resist every appeal, their spirit is like that of Nadab and Abihu.

When a person disregards the light God has given and remains in an association that does not help morals or strengthen spirituality, placing himself in the way of temptation, God will leave him to follow the carnal promptings of his own mind. Those who follow irreligion and tempt others away from truth, purity, and holiness have no excuse, especially when they have had instruction from youth. Unless thoroughly converted they become weaker and still weaker in moral power until the Spirit of God leaves them to carry out their own self-will to their own ruin.

History Warning and Reform

The verse describes what happened when the children of Seth abandoned their separation and mingled and intermarried with the descendants of Cain. They did not like to retain God in knowledge but fixed their minds upon worldly prosperity and enjoyment and neglected the commandments of the Lord. In doing so they lost their peculiar holy character and became like the depraved in spirit and in deeds, disregarding the restrictions of the seventh commandment and becoming vain in imaginations with darkened hearts. Therefore God gave them over to a mind void of judgment, and sin spread abroad in the earth like a deadly leprosy.

It also describes the post-Flood generation at Babel, whom God purposed would carry knowledge of His will as they went out to found nations in different parts of the earth so that the light of truth would shine undimmed to succeeding generations. With Noah living three hundred and fifty years after the Flood and Shem living five hundred years, their descendants had opportunity to become acquainted with God's requirements and the history of His dealings with their fathers. But they were unwilling to listen to those unpalatable truths and did not want to keep God in knowledge, and by the confusion of tongues they were in great measure shut out from intercourse with those who might have given them light, to their own great loss.

Before the Flood people knew that God existed but deliberately put Him out of minds and hearts to escape His witness and accountability and to pursue self-indulgence without alarm. Becoming ruled by sinful desires without moral restraint, their children grew up without reverence, principle, or conscience, pursuing pleasure and vice and responding with hatred and violence to anything that opposed their wishes. The same deliberate refusal marks the last days, when skepticism and what is called science undermine faith in the Bible, the literal appearing of Christ in the clouds is discarded, prophetic history is ignored, warning that Christ is at the door is denounced as fanaticism and heresy, and error and fables are gladly accepted. Lovers of pleasure seek amusement and moneymakers seek wealth, saying tomorrow will be as this day and more abundant, yet in the midst of that unbelief and godless pleasure the shout of the archangel and the trump of God are heard, the fatal deception is broken, and they are weighed in the balance and found wanting.

Refusing to bear God in the thoughts and not keeping Him in all the thoughts or inquiring after His will and pleasure produces a reprobate state of corrupt, wanton marrying to gratify loose passions and depraved lusts instead of to glorify God. It shows itself in disobedience to parents and in marrying without counsel of parents or the church and without asking whether marriage is according to His will, when the young fill their hearts with thoughts of getting married and become disobedient and wanton. This filled the old world when they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the Flood took them away and destroyed those sinners. It fills the last days when even professed believers are corrupt, so the same awful sins in a world almost ripe for destruction will bring the unmingled fury of God.

The verse is part of a description of the world before Christ's second coming, showing that when people reject knowledge of God and persist in corrupt practices God may leave them to the ruin their choices bring. Persistent wrongdoing can bring a person under sin's control, and prayer does not replace determined effort to stop doing what is within one's power to stop. The verse belongs to the whole first chapter of Romans which must be read, weighed, marked in every specification, and given in its full force as the revelation of the wrath of God from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men and women who hold the truth in unrighteousness though what may be known of God is manifest in them. With particular force joined to the gospel as the power of God unto salvation and the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith in which the just shall live by faith, it applies to ministers who preach the Word who must be sanctified through belief of the truth, to churches in which a thorough work needs to be done, and to every family which must be converted.

The whole first chapter sets forth the true experience of fathers and mothers and all families who claim to be sons and daughters of God. It exposes families having names on the church record who are not laborers together with God and fail accountability as faithful, exemplary believers. It rebukes the strangely neglected work of religion in home life where duty to seek the Lord and awaken to responsibility is left out. It describes professed believers who claim to believe and obey the truth in righteousness but whose knowledge does not cleanse them because they do not understand and receive sanctifying grace in the home, so that in works they deny the practical truth that would sanctify the receiver and need to become cleansed from every species of iniquity.