God leaves people to their own ways

The last post on the Epistle to the Romans was about the rationale for God’s wrath, which Paul said comes to earth from heaven. In his perception, many people deliberately turn away from God and God lets them go.

  1. “Therefore God gave them up in the desires of their hearts...” (Rom 1:24)
  2. “Therefore God gave them over to dishonorable passions …“ (Rom 1:26)
  3. “And just as they did not consider it approved to have God in knowledge, God gave them over in their unproven mind to do what was not proper” (Rom 1:28)

The direct context speaks of how God views the situation and how He responds. It’s not at all about us starting to judge certain people. God Himself allows these situations to happen. Or in the words of Paul, “God gave them … away”. It is as if we are dealing here with a sober statement of progressive causality.

But these words seem a bit strange. Who does Paul mean here? Is the whole world being condemned sweepingly here? Or does Paul have a specific situation, a specific example in mind? Often a blanket condemnation of the entire “non-believing” world is read out here. The image of God that speaks from this assumption is that of a vengeful, demanding God who reacts with anger when things do not go according to His will. This passage in Romans 1:18-32 thus becomes part of a threatening message. Although widespread, this assumption is false.

In order to get to the bottom of the text, we must first take a closer look at it. What is written? What does it not say? We will also find that not everything can be understood from the text alone. It needs additional information from the cultural context of the letter. Only then do the statements of the apostle become understandable.

The desires of their hearts

In the last article, the first of these three reactions was considered in more detail. The “desires of their hearts” were religious in nature. Man has created idols for himself instead of looking to the living God. The amazing thing is that at that moment God does not scent against the “wrong” things, but leaves man in this aberration to himself. He has given them over (Rom 1:24).

Paul had already lectured on the fact that people know God but do not act on it (Rom 1:21). He then describes a situation that the Romans could immediately imagine. If we now briefly look at this situation, it becomes clear that Paul had people in mind who lived in a religiously perverted way – and did so quite consciously. This cannot simply be transferred to the present day.

Our Western world today is very different from the one in which Paul lived. Paul lived in a thoroughly religious world, wherein there were various cults, many of them with idols, as he has just described them, and with practices, which he refers to. We should fade in this otherness and hold on to it. Paul is not describing our time, but he is describing his time and addressing the church in Rome at that time.

Only when we take this context seriously and understand it can we approach the text. And only then can we understand what the original readers probably heard. Only in this way can we derive a lesson for ourselves and for today. These are the principles of inductive Bible study.

The conscious turning away from God

Paul wanted to make it clear that the wrath of God comes from heaven upon all men who hold down the truth in unrighteousness (Rom 1:18). This concerns a conscious decision. This is about the way of life. It’s about what people do as they would God “not glorify or give thanks toHim.” (Rom 1:21), when they are “pretending to be wise” (Rom 1:22), ” dishonoringtheir bodies” (Rom 1:24), when they ” worshiped creation and offered worship toit” (Rom 1:25), and as a logical further development, “ their females changedthe natural use to unnature” and this “in the same way as men: forsakingthe natural use of females” (Rom 1:26-27).

It is these verbs that outline the context. Carefully considered, it seems to be what one does knowingly and willingly. Paul soberly states: “This” leads to “that”. He is not speaking to the people who do this, but he is speaking to the church in Rome who do not. They are made to see why the gospel is different. “The righteous will live by faith. For the wrath of God is revealed …” (Rom 1:17-18).

Dishonorable passions

The world of Greek mythology and Roman cults was full of gods who were not strangers to anything human, who time and again also led dissolute lives. Their supporters did likewise. The character of the gods was perverted and many people followed these passions of dishonor. Paul lectures on this and shows that the imitators of Christ follow a radically different God. In the apostle’s statement, it is not homosexuality that is central, but the different relationship with the living God.

The dishonorable passions – as the second group -, are above all this: without honor. Honor (gr. time) as opposed to dishonor (gr. atimia). Honor and dishonor are mentioned in various places in the New Testament. Literally, this is about “passions of dishonor.” It is the contrast to the church, where believers aspired to live honorably.

Everyone in Rome could see examples from everyday life, according to which people lived out their cult with dishonorable passions. That is why Paul can write this. Even though he had never been to Rome, he apparently heard enough about it that he could make statements relevant to the Roman community. Paul describes this as the people to whom he refers “defiling their bodies among themselves in uncleanness” (Rom 1:24). It is the result of spiritual perversion and turning away from the truth.

Talk of “impurity” and “defilement” presupposes that there is also such a thing as “purity” and “honor.” So when it comes to moral standards, what are they? And how do listeners know about these measuring sticks? Is it a reference to Jewish thought based on the Torah? It is obvious that Paul presents the contrast to the religious environment also against the background of the Jewish faith. He himself is a Jew and in the church in Rome there are also believers from the people of Israel.

Paul does not explain this in a big way, but presupposes something. The only clue we have is the reasoning so far. In it, the apostle is concerned with a contrast, with a statement that is supported by various arguments. So the goal of the statement is more important than the arguments. Or, to put it another way, the details are given only to illustrate a larger context.

Not fitting into the scheme

In various places dishonor is linked to “unnatural.” So too in this section, when a natural use is abandoned and women as well as men enter into same-sex sexual relations with each other.

Elsewhere, for example, he writes:

“Doesn’t nature itself teach you that when a man wears his hair long, it is a dishonor to him? On the other hand, if a woman wears her hair long, it is her glory, since the hair is given to her instead of a covering. But if anyone thinks he may be opinionated: We do not have such a habit, nor do the called-out churches of God.”
1Cor 11,14-16

The word “dishonor” is also used as a category. Paul writes:

“Has not the potter authority over the clay to make of the same clay the one vessel to honor and the other to dishonor?”
Rom 9:21

Honor and dishonor have to do with understanding divine order. It is based on creation, and in it man and woman were given as opposite to each other. Homosexuality turns this order upside down, if one would think of it instead of the man-woman relationship. So in this sense: the concept of heterosexuality becomes homosexuality through religious reinterpretation, just as the living God is replaced by idols. At the same time, we should always keep in mind that we are dealing with concepts, not with a representation of the diverse reality of this world. Singles, for example, are also not mentioned here. We should never judge people across the board because of their sexuality. Then we miss the target. This is about a different perception of reality, which is criticized by Paul.

In Romans 1:27, homosexual acts between men are called “indecency,” in the Greek aschemosune, or not-fitting-into-schema.

Starting from the perversion of the image of God, the dissolution of the divine order follows here as an example. The men have left the natural (according to the divine order) contact with women , i.e. they are not basically homosexual in orientation, but their own sexuality is perverted for themselves in the context of the cultic action. As a result, it is these passions against nature that are an example of spiritual derailment. Not the homosexuality per se, but the cultic perverted sexuality is the contrast – and this only as an illustrative example.

Are you all right?

According to this “scheme”, this “order”, Paul sees exactly this threatened. It is no different in the Tenach. Let us also consider that Paul may be addressing the Jews of the Roman church very specifically. His references are to the Torah, to the 5 books of Moses, and in chapter 2 he singles out the “hearers of the law” (Rom 2:13), by which is meant in the first place the Jewish community, from which some members of the Roman church came.

Here in the context of the letter to the Romans, he describes people who have the natural sexual intercourse between man and woman “abandoned” (Rom 1:27), just as he pointed out earlier that people are “have become vain in their conclusions” (Rom 1:21), that they have “become foolish” (Rom 1:22), that they are “have changed the glory of the incorruptible God …” (Rom 1:23).

Women also “changed the natural use to unnatural” (Rom 1:26), as did men. The impression is given that this concerns heterosexual people who, on occasion, and as a result of their religious idolatry, changed their heterosexual orientation to a homosexual orientation, possibly as part of the cult (many cults had sexual components).

Martin Zehnder points out that there is always penetration involved in this change from natural use. That is why in 3Mo 20 it is always the man who is addressed, or the woman when she gives herself to an animal, for example (3Mo 20,16). On the other hand, two women lying together are not convicted. Are lesbians now exempt from this assessment? It seems so. But isn’t that strange? The attentive reader can thereby recognize that a truth is involved here, which is expressed by such rules. It’s about something that lies behind the rules. An example is mentioned here, not a law given.

Let’s ask these questions if we want to understand what this is all about. There is no superficial answer. But it is essential for a differentiated understanding that we seek and find answers. The statement “God condemns homosexuality” is a short-circuit that does not do justice to the text. One succumbs to the temptation to impose a modern understanding on the text.

Homosexuality in the Epistle to the Romans

Now is this a statement about homosexuality as we talk about it today in terms of a predisposition? No. Let’s pay attention to the context. Paul speaks about turning away from the only God, and at the same time about turning to other idols. The section must be understood in this context. Paul names a spiritual turning away from the only God as the real aberration. His real goal is not a description of homosexuality, but a description of the missing of the goal of all people – without exception. Nowhere is it about judging someone else because of their sexuality. “Therefore you are inexcusable, O man – everyone who judges!” (Rom 2:5).

The people he describes are not in the church, they are living their own lives and they have turned away from the living God just as they have turned to other idols. Viewed in this context, the practices of other cults were always sexualized. The fact that the man-woman relationship is thereby unhinged, as if the homosexual relationship were replacing reality, is tantamount to a perversion. The cultic interpretation fits perfectly in the context of the Letter to the Romans. Any other interpretation or even equation with what is understood by homosexuality today misses the point.

In the cultic interpretation, what Paul says at the end of the passage also becomes clearer:

“… Doing indecency and thus, as it had to be, receiving the home payment of their aberration to themselves again.”
Rom 1:27

The aberration (here it is not about disposition!) these people get back to themselves. The home payment is an “in lieu of wages” (gr. antimisthia). It is just not a real wage. As an image of a spiritual reality “nothing clever comes out of it”.

Homosexuality as a word was first used by the Hungarian physician Karoly Maria Benkert (1824-1882) in 1869. It’s a fairly new term. Our understanding today is not the same as what was true at the time of Paul or what was once written down in the books of Moses. This does not invalidate these statements, but there is a call to finally read the texts in their own context and not to sell them haphazardly and thoughtlessly as “God is against homosexuality” from today’s perspective.

This post is not, and cannot be, an account of homosexuality in the Bible. But as far as this passage is used again and again as “proof” that God condemns homosexuality, it can be reliably pointed out that Paul did not take homosexuality as his target, but a religious aberration that was typically associated with homosexuality in the environment of Rome at that time.

Unproven thinking

We come to the third argument:

“And just as they did not consider it approved to have God in knowledge, God gave them over to their unproven sense of thinking.”
Rom 1:28

The renunciation of the sole God leads to an “unproven sense of thinking”. Of course, the consequences are again considerable. Paul speaks of the fact that these people now

“… Doing that which is not fitting: filled with every injustice, malice, evil nature, covetousness, bloated with envy, murder, strife, deceit, ill-will; ear-blowers, slanderers, God-despisers, sacrilegious, proud, arrogant, inventors of evil things, recalcitrant against parents, uncomprehending, untrustworthy, loveless, unforgiving, merciless.”
Rom 1:29-32

It’s an amazingly long list. As a side note, these things are on the same level as the homosexuality mentioned earlier. A selective perception and condemnation of people because of their sexuality could be supplemented here with equivalent things. Unfortunately, it seems to me that these things like to be “overlooked” or viewed as less important.

From the unproven sense of thinking comes the “doing”. The whole listing is created somewhere in the head beforehand. The Gospel is about God’s Word moving into our thinking and reasoning. In chapter 12, after the conclusion of the teaching, Paul speaks about the believer’s way of life. There he says we should be “transformed by the renewing of our mind” (Rom 12:2).

Paul now comes to the conclusion and sums up:

“… Those who recognize God’s requirement of justice, that those who commit such things deserve death; not only do they do it themselves, but they also assist those who commit it. Therefore you are inexcusable, O man – everyone who judges; for in judging the other you condemn yourself.”
Rom 1:32

All the things that have been mentioned are reprehensible. However, it does not give us the right to judge others. If we do that, we condemn ourselves at the same time. Paul only wants to make it clear that with God there is no respect of person (Rom 2:11) and no one is righteous, not even one (Rom 3:10). The apostle spans a large arc and this passage in chapter 1 is only a part of it.

Puzzle pieces

Sometimes it looks like we are puzzle pieces that don’t fit in anywhere. One time it is our language, another time it is our origin. Maybe it’s a disability. It can also be the color of the skin, the position in society. And sometimes it is sexuality that makes us a minority.

All these things are neither good nor bad (we are not talking about perversion, abuse of power and the like). It is the whole reality of this world for which God gave His Son. This whole world is in need of salvation. This whole world our God and Father will bring back to Himself and reconcile to Himself – making peace through the blood of the cross (Col 1:20). At the latest then all puzzle pieces fit together.

This is what I want to have before my eyes. Today already.

Deepening

On the subject of homosexuality:

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