Introduction: The Unrighteousness of All People (1:18–3:20)
The focal point of Paul’s letter to the Romans is the teaching that the only righteousness that avails before God is the righteousness that comes from God—through faith in Christ. The need for righteousness from God is universal because, ever since Adam and Eve’s fall into sin, no one is righteous. No one can stand before God’s bar of justice and claim on the basis of personal performance to have the merit necessary to qualify for heaven. All people, by their very nature, fall short of God’s just and holy requirements. All are unrighteous.
In the next section (1:18–3:20), Paul documents this lack of righteousness, dividing all people into three major categories.
The first group he depicts are the open and coarse sinners (1:18-32), whom Paul’s readers would identify as gentile unbelievers living lifestyles of blatant sinfulness.
The second group Paul describes are those of somewhat higher and more noble standards. We might call them moralists, namely, people who feel that living a moral life gives them the grounds for expecting a more favorable verdict from God. They agree that the coarse sins Paul identified and denounced in the first group are intolerable to God. However, because they themselves aren’t caught up in these coarse sins, they think themselves to be better off before God. On the basis of their supposedly more acceptable conduct, they feel they’re not under God’s wrath. Paul deals with their misunderstanding in 2:1-16.
Paul’s third category of people who lack righteousness assume that they always have possessed it. They are the Jews. Because they are descendants of Abraham and members of God’s chosen people, blessed with God’s revealed Word, many of them suppose they must already be on the road to heaven. Paul clearly points out that a mere outward, external connection will not do (2:17–3:9).
In a summary statement (3:10-20), Paul concludes that no one, neither Jew nor Gentile, has the righteousness a just and holy God rightly demands. Righteousness is not to be found in the fallen human family. If there is to be any hope of a solution, the remedy has to come from the outside—from God himself. How that remedy is provided will be the emphasis of Paul’s next section.
The unrighteousness of the Gentiles
18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities— his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
It is useful to note the parallelism between verses 17 and 18. In the former verse, Paul asserted that the righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel. In the next verse, he now says, “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men.” The connection between these two verses becomes even more apparent when we recall that all the major thoughts from verses 16 to 21 are connected with causal conjunctions. Although the NIV translation doesn’t indicate it, there is a causal conjunction at the start of verse 16. The progression of Paul’s thought is this: If there is to be any righteousness for fallen mankind, it has to come from God because “the wrath of God . . . revealed from heaven” is the only thing unrighteous people can reasonably expect on the basis of what they have done and continue to do.
Why is God angry with sinners? Because they “suppress[ed] the truth by their wickedness.” Our human minds often find difficulty in accepting God’s being angry with all sinners. We’re inclined to pose the questions, Don’t some people have many advantages over others? Don’t some have the opportunity to gain a much fuller understanding of God’s will, while others seem to be shortchanged? Is it fair for God to be equally angry with all people?
It’s helpful to follow Paul’s logic here. He points out that the heart of the matter is not the quantity of knowledge people have. God is not angry with people for having too little knowledge but rather for going against what knowledge they do have. It’s not ignorance or a lack of information that leads them to do bad things; it’s perversity on the sinner’s part. Against better knowledge the sinner rebels against God and defies him with conscious and deliberate disobedience. Hence Paul brands such conduct as “wickedness.”
But is it too strong to call this “wickedness”? Again, Paul’s causal conjunction is helpful. Paul maintains that sinners can fairly be charged with rebellion against better knowledge because they have “truth” that they suppress. How can Paul say that they have truth to wickedly suppress? Because “what may be known about God is plain to them.” Why can Paul say it is plain to them? Because “God has made it plain to them.” How can Paul know that it’s plain to them? Because “since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”
People have a natural knowledge of God written in their hearts, and this knowledge is supplemented and reinforced by what Paul now adds, namely, proof gained by looking around at the created world. Anyone can see that the world was brought into being by something far greater than mere chance, by someone with “eternal power and divine nature.” Only the fool says, “There is no God” (Psalm 14:1). All people have information about God, “so that men are without excuse.”
In the context of our letter, it is clear that Paul is directing this verdict primarily against the Gentiles. He now goes on to show that suppressing the truth and following wrong thinking leads to wrong actions—with disastrous results for gentile sinners.