Romans 1:18-32

1. The Sinfulness of the Gentiles.

This fearful yet truthful description of the moral decay of the Gentile world is not introduced abruptly. In Romans 1:17 the Apostle had declared that righteousness from God was revealed by faith; he now proves this (and thus the position of Romans 1:16) by the fact that God's wrath is revealed against unrighteousness. This is, indeed, a revelation of God's punitive righteousness, but it shows that sinful men can be saved only through the gospel. Romans 1:18 suggests the thoughts developed more fully in the entire section. In Romans 1:19-23 the Apostle shows why this wrath was revealed; in Romans 1:24-32, how it was revealed; but in the latter part he constantly recurs to the previous thought. The former part is a sketch of the downward progress of the heathen world, in its religious life; the latter describes the consequent immorality, which is in fact a revelation of God's wrath. (For an analysis of Romans 1:24-32, see under Romans 1:24.) The Apostle assumes that religion and morality are inseparably connected; that God punishes impiety by giving up the impious to the wrong practices which are the legitimate fruit of their ungodliness; that truth and right, error and wrong, are vitally connected in human experience.