Romans 1:21

ff. εἰς τὸ εἶναι αὐτοὺς ἀναπολογήτους would naturally express purpose: to make men inexcusable is one, though not the only or the ultimate, intention of God in giving this revelation. But the διότι almost forces us to take the εἰς τὸ as expressing result: so that they are inexcusable, because, etc. (see Burton's Moods and Tenses, § 411). In Romans 1:21-23 the wrong course taken by humanity is described. Nature shows us that God is to be glorified and thanked, i.e., nature reveals Him to be great and good. But men were not content to accept the impression made on them by nature; they fell to reasoning upon it, and in their reasonings (διαλογισμοί, “perverse self-willed reasonings or speculations,” S. and H.) were made vain (ἐματαιώθησαν); the result stultified the process; their instinctive perception of God became confused and uncertain; their unintelligent heart, the seat of the moral consciousness, was darkened. In asserting their wisdom they became fools, and showed it conspicuously in their idolatries. They resigned the glory of the incorruptible God (i.e., the incorruptible God, all glorious as He was, and as He was seen in nature to be), and took instead of Him some image of a corruptible, even of a vile creature. The expression ἤλλαξαν τὴν δόξαν κ. τ. λ. is borrowed in part from Psalms 105:20 (LXX): ἠλλάξαντο τὴν δόξαν αὐτῶν ἐν ὁμοιώματι μόσχου ἔσθοντος χόρτον. The reduplication of the same idea in ἐν ὁμοιώματι εἰκόνος shows the indignant contempt with which the Apostle looked on this empty and abject religion in which God had been lost. The birds, quadrupeds and reptiles could all be illustrated from Egypt.

With Romans 1:24 the Apostle turns from this sin to its punishment. Because of it (διὸ) God gave them up. To lose God is to lose everything: to lose the connection with Him involved in constantly glorifying and giving Him thanks, is to sink into an abyss of darkness, intellectual and moral. It is to become fitted for wrath at last, under the pressure of wrath all the time. Such, in idea, is the history of humanity to Paul, as interpreted by its issue in the moral condition of the pagan world when he wrote. Exceptions are allowed for (Romans 2:10), but this is the position as a whole. παρέδωκεν in all three places (Romans 1:24, εἰς ἀκαθαρσίαν; Romans 1:26, εἰς πάθη ἀτιμίας; Romans 1:28, εἰς ἀδόκιμον νοῦν) expresses the judicial action of God. The sensual impurity of religions in which the incorruptible God had been resigned for the image of an animal, that could not but creep into the imagination of the worshippers and debase it, was a Divine judgment. τοῦ ἀτιμάζεσθαι τὰ σώματα αὐτῶν ἐν αὐτοῖς, in accordance with the conception of a judicial act, expresses the Divine purpose that their bodies might be dishonoured among them. For gen of purpose, see Winer, 408 ff. (where, however, a different construction is given for this passage, τοῦ ἀτιμάζεσθαι being made to depend immediately on ἁκαθαρσίαν).