God Gave Them Up To Dishonor
Romans 1:24-25
“Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.” -Romans 1:24–25
At this stage of Paul’s argument, he purposes to make clear that God is active in the process by which the consequences of sin follow the committing of sin. It’s true, we live in a moral universe which holds intrinsic consequences for sin but that does not mean God is strictly passive as the Deists suppose. Rather, when they consciously gave God up for idols, he gave them up in the lust of their hearts.
God said there would be certain consequences for sin, and yet he providentially governs the natural course of those things he decrees.
He says,
“So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts, to follow their own counsels.” -Psalm 81:12
“And they made a calf in those days, and offered a sacrifice to the idol and were rejoicing in the works of their hands. But God turned away and gave them over to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets: “ ‘Did you bring to me slain beasts and sacrifices, during the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? You took up the tent of Moloch and the star of your god Rephan, the images that you made to worship; and I will send you into exile beyond Babylon.’” -Acts 7:41–43
That is not to say, God is capricious, malicious, or vindictive. Rather, he allows them to have what they demand; and in having it, they also get the consequence. The consequence of their lustful desire is impurity. And as is the case with sin, it costs more than the sinner bargains for.
Because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served idols, their foolish hearts were darkened, which led to a passionate desire for forbidden pleasure. God, giving them up to their lustful pleasures, allowed them to suffer a particular impurity, the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves.
As Franz Leenhardt notes,
“Man has mocked the honour of God by deifying the bodies of creatures erected into idols; God therefore abandons man to passions which dishonour his own body.”1
Don’t want Crumbs delivered every day?
Navigate to your.substack.com/account and toggle off Crumbs From Our Master’s Table. Instead of receiving Crumbs in your inbox daily, you will receive a collection of the week’s Crumbs each Sunday as part of your BOOKS AND LETTERS subscription.
Franz J. Leenhardt: The Epistle to the Romans, London, 1961.