Romans 1:18

f. The revelation of the righteousness of God (Romans 1:17) is needed in view of the revelation of His wrath, from which only δικ. θεοῦ (whether it be His justifying sentence or the righteousness which He bestows on man) can deliver. ὀργὴ in the N.T. is usually eschatological, but in 1 Thessalonians 2:16 it refers to some historical judgment, and in John 3:36 it is the condemnation of the sinner by God, with all that it involves, present and to come. The revelation of wrath here probably refers mainly to the final judgment: the primary character of Jesus in Paul's Gospel being ὁ ῥυόμενος ἡμᾶς ἐκ τῆς ὀργῆς τῆς ἐρχομένης, 1 Thessalonians 1:10; Romans 5:9; but it is not forcing it here to make it include God's condemnation uttered in conscience, and attested (Romans 1:24) in the judicial abandonment of the world. The revelation of the righteousness of God has to match this situation, and reverse it. ἀσέβεια is “positive and active irreligion”: see Trench, Syn, § lxvi. τῶν τὴν ἀλήθειαν ἐν ἀδικίᾳ κατεχόντων may mean (1) who possess the truth, yet live in unrighteousness; or (2) who suppress the truth by, or in, an unrighteous life. In the N.T. ἀλήθεια is moral rather than speculative; it is truth of a sort which is held only as it is acted on: cf. the Johannine expression ποιεῖν τὴν ἀλήθειαν. Hence the latter sense is to be preferred (see Wendt, Lehre Jesu, II.,. 203 Anm.). διότι τὸ γνωστὸν τοῦ θεοῦ κ. τ. λ. There is no indisputable way of deciding whether γνωστὸν here means “known” (the usual N.T. sense) or “knowable” (the usual classic sense). Cremer (who compares Philippians 3:8 τὸ ὑπερέχον τῆς γνώσεως, Hebrews 6:17 τὸ ἀμετάθετον τῆς βουλῆς, Romans 2:4 τὸ χρηστὸν τοῦ θεοῦ, and makes τοῦ θεοῦ in the passage before us also gen poss.) favours the latter. What is meant in either case is the knowledge of God which is independent of such a special revelation as had been given to the Jews. Under this come (Romans 1:20) His eternal power, and in a word His (eternal) divinity, things inaccessible indeed to sense (ἀόρατα), but clear to intelligence (νοούμενα), ever since creation (ἀπὸ κτίσεως κόσμου : for ἀπὸ thus used, see Winer, 463), by the things that are made. God's power, and the totality of the Divine attributes constituting the Divine nature, are inevitably impressed on the mind by nature (or, to use the scripture word, by creation). There is that within man which so catches the meaning of all that is without as to issue in an instinctive knowledge of God. (See the magnificent illustration of this in Illingworth's Divine Immanence, chap. 2, on The religious influence of the material world.) This knowledge involves duties, and men are without excuse because, when in possession of it, they did not perform these duties; that is, did not glorify as God the God whom they thus knew.