Does God Want to Punish Sinners, or to Rescue Them?

A study of Romans 1:18-32

Paul introduces his letter to the Romans as a letter about the gospel, and he describes the gospel as “the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.” In the gospel, he says, a righteousness from God is revealed. The good news is that we can be beneficiaries of God’s righteousness. We can be in a right relationship with him, if we accept the gospel.

After stating his thesis, Paul explains the gospel in more detail, starting with our need for the gospel. Why do we need to be put into a right relationship with God? Without the gospel, we would be in a wrong relationship. Paul explains that we were not just going our separate ways — we were enemies of God. There is an important barrier to be overcome.

The wrath of God

Paul explains our need starting in verse 18: The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness. God is angry at sin — angry at the passive sin of ignoring God, and angry at active rebellion. This anger is being revealed, perhaps in nature, or by scriptures that say that sin will be punished.

However, there is something odd about this. It is like a prison warden who is so angry at the prisoners that he sends his son into the prison to tell them how to escape, and he gives them the key to his own home so they will have a place to live. This is not what we normally call "wrath." The gospel reveals that our concepts of wrath are wrong.

Paul is turning religious assumptions upside down — he may begin with a concept like "wrath," but he does not leave it there. The gospel reveals how Christ has turned things around. We cannot take verse 18 as Paul's final statement on the matter, because it is not. It is merely the starting point in his argument. We have to see these verses as part of Paul's strategy of explaining the gospel. He is starting with ideas that his readers probably agree with, but he explains that the gospel calls those assumptions into question.

People assume that God is angry at sinners because they ought to know better. (In Paul's day, it was generally those from a Jewish background who made this assumption; today it is generally Christian conservatives.) But as Paul will soon explain, this would mean that God is angry at absolutely everybody. Instead, the gospel reveals a God who loves people even when they are his enemies, a God who justifies the ungodly, a God who rescues people from their addictions.

Verse 19 describes some of the common assumptions about why God would be angry at sinners: Since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. How did he make it plain? Verse 20: For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities — his eternal power and divine nature — have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

Modern science tells us that the universe had a beginning. There was nothing, and there was suddenly something — a big bang, creating and filling the universe. This colossal explosion had a cause, a cause that existed before time did, a cause that was not part of the world the big bang created. Many people conclude that the cause was God. However, this gives only a rudimentary understanding of what God is. People might deduce that God is eternal and supernatural, but it says nothing about morality, and nothing about salvation. The gospel reveals something different: a God who came to his people in a form they did not expect. God's most important characteristics are revealed not by creation, but by Christ.

God could make himself plain if he wanted to. He could be a pillar of fire, or he could write messages in the sky. He could make his existence unavoidable, but he chooses not to. He allows people to ignore him and reject him. We are not forced to cower in front of an overwhelming power, but our love is freely given.

A bad trade

But many people reject God: For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened (v. 21). This was the common Jewish explanation of idolatry, as we can see from other Jewish literature of this time period. Although people had an opportunity to know about God, they ignored him and did not show any appreciation to him. As a result, their thinking became futile — it did not produce any fruit. Indeed, if we try to make sense out of life without God in the picture, we will never get the right answer.

Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles (vv. 22-23). Most cultures claim to be wise, but if they think it is smart to reject truth and build on falsehood, then they are foolish. They are giving up something wonderful and ending up with snakes and fools to worship. Their gods are imitations, and can never be anything more than imitations.

Letting them do what they want

So what did God do? Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another (v. 24). In this standard Jewish critique of paganism, God lets people reap the consequences of their erroneous ideas. They miss out on the wisdom and guidance of God. Paul uses sex as his primary example, because that was one area in which Jews commonly criticized the Gentile world.

Paul repeats these thoughts in verses 25-26: They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator — who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. The people traded away truth and lived as if God did not exist. And God was so angry that he let them do what they want.

Paul says: Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural sexual relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error (vv. 26-27). Paul is not saying that God is going to punish them for their awful behavior. No, his emphasis is different. Paul is saying that God punishes them by letting them do these sexual sins. Paul is shifting the meaning of wrath, sin, and punishment. The sins that people commit are symptoms of their alienation from God, not the cause.

However, it is true that when we cut ourselves off from God, the things we want are often bad for us, and if God lets us do what we want, we end up doing things that are bad for us. Sexual sins are one example; Paul could have just as easily used greed as a different example, or dishonesty, or violence. Different problems appeal to different people, and if we just do what we want, we end up hurting ourselves as well as others.

Verse 28 puts it like this: Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done.

Many examples

Paul then gives a list of examples in verses 29-31: They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. People do not want to live in a world of greed and envy, murder and deceit. They don’t want a world of depravity, arrogance and slander, but without God, that is where they end up.

Paul is repeating the standard Jewish view of the world, and he is building rapport with his Jewish readers. But he is setting them up, we might say — after presenting this judgmental worldview, he is going to apply it to the Jews and show that it condemns them just as much as it does the Gentiles. This worldview does not represent the way God really is. The gospel has a different view of sin and judgment — it reveals the righteous mercy of God.

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All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™  Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com

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This article was written by Michael Morrison in 2003 and was updated in 2011.

Verse 32: Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. Maybe it seems harsh to say that a gossiper deserves to die, and that envious people deserve to die. If we take this verse at face value, this is what Paul is saying: Those people deserve to die. Paul is passing judgment, condemning the people to death for their sins.

However, there is a reason that we should not take this verse at face value, and it is in the very next verse that Paul writes — chapter 2, verse 1. (The chapter break tends to obscure the contrast in these two verses.) Paul immediately starts criticizing those who pass judgment and condemn others! Is he criticizing himself? No, he is criticizing the worldview described in verse 32 (indeed, all the verses from 18 onward are based on a traditional view that Paul is criticizing, not endorsing). The gospel reveals a God who gives salvation, and a God who is righteous in doing so. God's righteous decree according to the gospel is life, not death.

The gospel is the power of salvation, and the revelation of God’s righteousness is the solution not only for the sins of paganism, but also the sin of being judgmental. God has acted to rescue people, to save them, to restore them to righteousness. As Paul will explain in later chapters, he has done it in Jesus Christ.

Questions for discussion:

• In what way does creation inform me about God? (v. 20)

• Is it true that everyone has evidence of God? Why doesn’t God make himself more obvious?

• Are foolish desires a sin or a punishment? (v. 24)

• Which of the sins am I most likely to commit? (vv. 30-31)

• Is God’s anger part of the gospel, or the setting in which the good news is revealed?