Scripture is a prophetic interpretation of reality. That is, it tells us what is really going on from the perspective of the Lord of History. As an inspired text it traces out not only the current of the times, but also the trajectory, the end to which things tend. It is of course important for us to read Scripture with the Church and exercise the care the Church would have us show and, at the end of the day, to submit our understanding to the rule of faith and the context of Sacred Tradition.
With those parameters in mind, I would like to consider Romans 1,
wherein St. Paul describes the grave condition of the Greco-Roman
culture of his day. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit he
prophetically interpreted those times of the First Century AD. And,
though the text speaks specifically to those times, it is easily evident
that our current times are becoming almost identical to what St. Paul
and the Holy Spirit described.
St. Paul saw a once noble culture that was in grave crisis and was in the process of being plowed under by God for its willful suppression of the truth.
Let’s take a look at the details of this prophetic interpretation of those days and apply it to our own. The text opens without any niceties, and words reach us almost like lead pellets.
I. The Root of the Ruin - The text says, The
wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness
and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness.
As the curtain draws back, we not eased into the scene at all. We are confronted at once with the glaring lights of judgment and the woeful word: “wrath.”
And note that the wrath of God is called here a revelation. That is to
say it is a word of truth that revels, and prophetically interprets
reality for us. The wrath is the revelation!
Quite astonishing really
and directly contrary to our modern tendency to see God only as the
“affirmer in chief;” whose love for us in understood only in sentimental
terms, never in terms of a strong love that insists for us what is
right and true, and what is ultimately what we need, not just what we
want.
And what is the “wrath of God?”
The wrath of God is our experience of the total incompatibility of
unrepented sin before the holiness of God. The unrepentant sinner cannot
endure the presence, and the holiness of God, There is for such a one
wailing and grinding of teeth, anger and even rage when confronted by
the existence of God and the demands of His justice and holiness. God’s
wrath does not mean in some simplistic sense that God is “mad” as if
being emotionally worked up to fury. God is not moody and unstable. God
is not subject to temper tantrums like we are. Rather this, God is holy,
and the unrepentant sinner cannot endure his holiness, but experiences
it as wrath.
To the degree that God’s wrath is in Him, it is his passion to set things right.
God is patient and will wait and work to draw us to repentance. But his
justice and truth cannot forever tarry, and when judgment sets in on a
person or culture, a civilization or epoch, his holiness and justice are
reveled as wrath to the unrepentant, be it an individual or a culture.
And what was the central sin of St. Paul’s day, and our own too? Simply stated in the verse, THE sin of Romans 1 is this, (and it is the sin that leads to every other problem): they suppress the truth by their wickedness.
Note this well,
those who seek to remain in their wickedness suppress the truth. It was
the problem in St. Paul’s day and also in ours. On account of
wickedness, and a desire to persist in sin, many suppress the truth. The
catechism of the Catholic Church warns,
by
the impact of the senses and the imagination, but also by disordered
appetites which are the consequences of original sin….it happens that
men in such matters easily persuade themselves that what they would not
like to be true is false or at least doubtful. (Catechism of the Catholic Church # 37)
Yes, and St Paul also told St. Timothy
For
the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine.
Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great
number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. (2 Tim 4:3)
And as Isaiah had described:
They
say to the seers, “See no more visions!” and to the prophets, “Give us
no more visions of what is right! Tell us pleasant things, prophesy
illusions! (Isaiah 30:10)
Yes, on
account of a desire to cling to their sin and to justify themselves,
people in Paul’s day and now as well suppress the truth. And
while this human tendency has always existed, it has taken on a
widespread and collective tendency in our own times, as it did in St.
Paul’s age. There is an increasing and widespread tendency for people
of our own time in the decadent West to go on calling good, or no big
deal what God calls sinful.
As such we suppress the truth and now, as then, the wrath of God is being revealed.
We shall see just how his wrath is revealed in a moment. But the text
makes it clear, on account of the sin of the repeated, collective and
obstinate suppression of the truth, God’s wrath is being revealed on the
culture of the decadent West.
II. Revelation that is Refused - The text goes on to say, and
since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has
made it plain to them. 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 people
are without excuse. – (Romans 1:19-20)
Note well that God the Holy Spirit and St. Paul attest that the suppression of the truth is willful.
We are not dealing with simple ignorance here. And while it is true
that the Pagan people of St. Paul’s day did not have the Scriptures,
nevertheless, they are “without excuse.” Why? Because they had the
revelation of creation. Creation reveals God, and speaks not only to His
existence, but also to his attributes, to his justice and to his his
power, his will and the good order He instills in what he has made and
thus expects of us.
All of this makes
even those raised outside the context of faith, whether in the First
Century or own day, to be “without excuse.”
The
Catechism also couches our responsibility to discover and live the truth
as rooted in the existence of something called the conscience:
Deep within his
conscience man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself but
which he must obey. Its voice, ever calling him to love and to do what
is good and to avoid evil, sounds in his heart at the right moment.
. . . For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God. . . . His
conscience is man’s most secret core and his sanctuary. There he is
alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths….It bears witness to the
authority of truth in reference to the supreme Good to which the human
person is drawn, and it welcomes the commandments….[Conscience] is a
messenger of him, who, both in nature and in grace, speaks to us behind a
veil, and teaches and rules us by his representatives. Conscience is
the aboriginal Vicar of Christ. (Catechism of the Catholic Church #s 1776-1778).
Again, and therefore,
because of the witness and revelation of the Created order, and on
account of the conscience present and operative in all who have attained
the use of reason, those who suppress the truth are without excuse for
this suppression. They are suppressing what, deep down, they know.
It has been
my experience for 25 years as a pastor working with sinners (and not
being without sin myself) that those I must confront about their sin,
know, deep down, what they are doing. They may have suppressed
the still small voice of God, and they may have sought to keep His voice
at bay by layers of stinking thinking. They have also collect false
teachers to confirm them in their sin and permitted many deceivers to
tickle their ears. But, deep down they know what they do is wrong and,
at the end of the day, they are without excuse.
Some degree of the
lack of due discretion may ameliorate the severity of their culpability,
but ultimately they are without excuse for the suppressing of the
truth. There is a revelation of creation (and for many today, also the
Word of God which has been preached and heard by most).
But many today, as in Paul’s time refuse revelation, doing so willfully and to justify wickedness, they are without excuse.
III. The Result in the Ranks - The Text says, For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but became vain in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools
and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look
like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. (Romans 1:21-23)
This should seem very familiar.
As in St. Paul’s Day, but even more so in ours, a prideful culture has
set aside God, whether through explicit atheism and militant secularism,
or through neglect and willful tepidity. God has been escorted to the
margins of our proud anthropocentric culture. His wisdom has been
forcibly removed from our schools, and the public square. His image and
any reminders of him are increasing removed by force of law. And many
too mock His holy Name and mention His truth only to ridicule and scorn
it as a remnant from the “dark ages.”
Faith and the magnificent deposit of knowledge and culture that has come with it, has been scoffed at as a relic from times less enlightened and scientific than our our own “brilliant” and enlightened times.
Our disdainful culture has become a sort of iconoclastic anti-culture
which has systematically put into the shredder every vestige of Godly
wisdom it can. The traditional family, human sexuality, chastity, self
control, moderation and almost every other virtue have been scorned and
willfully smashed by the iconoclasts of this time. To them everything of
this sort must go.
And as a prophetic interpretation of reality, the Scripture from Romans describes the result of suppressing the truth and refusing to acknowledge and glorify God. The text says, they became vain in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools.
Yes there is a powerful darkening effect that comes from suppressing the truth and refusing the wisdom and revelation of God.
While claiming to be so wise, so smart and advanced, we have instead
become foolish, and vain, as our intellects grow dimer and darker by the
day. Our concern for vain, foolish, passing and silly things knows
little bounds today. And yet the things that really do matter, death,
judgment, heaven and hell, are almost never attended to. We run after
foolish things but cannot even exercise moderate self control. Our debt
knows no bounds but we cannot stop spending. We cannot make or keep
commitments, addictions are off the hook, and all most basic indicators
indicate grave problems: graduation rates, SAT scores, teenage
pregnancy, STDs, abortion rates, AIDs, Divorces rates, cohabition
rates. All the numbers that should be up are down, and the number that
should be down are up.
Claiming to be so wise and smart, we have become collectively foolish and even our capacity to think clearly
of solutions and have intelligent and meaningful conversations becomes
increasingly impossible, since we cannot agree on even basic points. We
simply talk past each other and live in separate little stovepipes, in
smaller and increasingly self defined worlds.
And if your think the line about idolatry doesn’t apply today, don’t kid yourself.
People are into stones and rocks, and all sorts of strange syncretistic
combinations of religions, to include the occult. This is the age of
the “designer God” wherein people no longer tolerate the revealed God of
the Scriptures, but recast, reinvent, and remake a God of their own
understanding, who just so happens to agree with everything they think.
And if some troublesome and intolerant priest happens to quote Scripture, well,
there are any number of ways that darkened minds can suppress that
truth real fast. Yes, idolatry is alive and well in age of a designer
God, a personal sort of hand carved idol that can be invoked over an
against the true God of the Scriptures.
And for all this people today congratulate themselves
for being tolerant, open-minded, non-judgemental and so forth. Our
senseless minds have become very dark, our thoughts vain and our
behavior foolish.
Our culture is in the very grave condition that this Scripture, this prophetic interpretation of reality describes. There is much for which we are rightfully concerned.
But wait, the darkness, foolishness, idolatry and vanity get even worse. We must read on.
IV. The Revelation of the Wrath – The text says, Therefore
God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual
impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They
exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served
created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.Because
of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women
exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way
the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed
with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men,
and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. (Rom 1: 24-27)
And here the “wrath” is revealed.
The text simply says, “God gave them over to their sinful desires.”
This is the wrath, this is the revelation of the total incompatibility
of unrepented sin before the holiness of God and the holiness to which
we are summoned.
In effect, God says, “OK, if you want sin and rebellion, you can have it.
It is all yours. I will now allow you to experience the full
consequences of your sinful rebellion. You will now feel the full fury
of your own sinful choices.” Yes, God gave them over to their sinful
desires….
And as a prophetic interpretation of reality, it seems conclusive that God has also given us over in a similar way to our sinful desires.
And note the first and most prominent effect of this being given over to sinful desires: sexual confusion of a colossal degree.
The text describes sexual impurity, the degradation of their bodies,
shameful lusts and the shameful acts of homosexual perversion that is
condoned and celebrated. The text also speaks of bodily penalties for
such action, probably disease and other deleterious effects that come
from doing what is unnatural and using the body for purposes for which
it is not designed.
Welcome to the 21st Century decaying West.
Many misunderstand what Romans 1 is saying
and point to this text to warn us that God will punish us for our
condoning and celebrating of homosexual acts. But Romans 1 does not say
God will punish for this. Romans 1 says that the widespread condoning
and celebrating of homosexual acts IS God’s punishment, it is
the revelation of wrath. It is the first and chief indication that God
has given us over to our stubborn sinfulness and to our lust.
Now, let us be careful to distinguish here.
The text does not say that homosexuals are per se being punished. For
some may mysteriously have this orientation but live chastely. But
rather the text is saying we are all being punished.
Why? For over 60 years now the decadent West has celebrated promiscuity,
pornography, fornication, cohabitation, contraception, and even to some
extent adultery. The resulting carnage of abortion, STDs, AIDs, single
motherhood, absent fathers, poverty, and all sorts of hideous and
heinous effects on our children has not been enough to bring us to our
senses. Our lusts have become wilder and more and more debased.
In contraception we severed the connections between sex, procreation, and marriage.
Our senseless minds have become darkened. Sex was reduced to two adults
doing what they pleased in order to have fun or “share love (lust).”
This opened the door to increasingly debased sexual expression and
irresponsibility.
Enter the homosexual community and its demands for acceptance.
And the wider culture, now debased, darkened, and deeply confused,
cannot comprehend what is frankly obvious, that homosexual acts are
wholly contrary to nature. The very design of the body, of the actual
body parts shouts against it. But the wider culture, already deeply
immersed in its own unnatural confusions about sex via contraception,
and an increasing and steady diet by many of highly debased pornography
that celebrates both oral and anal sex among heterosexuals, had no
answer to the challenge.
We have gone out of our collective mind, our senseless minds are darkened, confused, foolish, and debased. This is wrath,
this is what it means to be given over to our sinful desires. This is
what happens when God finally has to say to a culture, “If you want sin,
you have it, until it comes out of your ears.”
How many tens of millions of aborted babies have been sacrificed to our wild lusts,
how high have the other body counts of pain effects gone: children in
poverty, without fathers, in confused and broken homes, divorce, STDs,
deaths by AIDs. In none of this have we repented.
But in all of it the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness.
Notice again, homosexuals are not being singled out, the wrath is
against ALL godlessness and wickedness of all who suppress the truth.
And when even our lustful carnage has not been enough to bring us to our
senses, God finally says, enough, and gives us over to our own sinful
desires to feel their full effect. We have become so collectively
foolish and vain in our thinking and darkened in our intellect that we
now as a culture “celebrate” homosexual acts which Scripture rightly
calls disordered (paraphysin = “contrary to nature” and is the
word St. Paul uses in this passage to assess homosexual acts). Scripture
also speaks of these sorts of acts as acts of grave depravity that cry
to heaven for vengeance.
But, as the text says, Although
they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve
death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve
of those who practice them (verse 32). This is darkness, this is wrath.
This is what it means to be given over to our sins,
a deeply darkened mind. The celebration of homosexual acts IS God’s
punishment and demonstrates, according to the text that God has given us
over.
V. The Revolution that Results – The text says, Furthermore,
just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of
God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what
ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of
wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder,
strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters,
insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they
disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love,
no mercy. (Romans 1:28-31)
The text states clearly and in very familiar terms the truth that when sex, and marriage and family go into the cultural shredder, and enormous number of social ills are set loose.
This is because children are no longer properly formed.
The term “bastard” in its figurative term refers to an incorrigible
person, and its more literal meaning is some one who has no father. Both
senses are related. And this text says in effect that every starts to
act like bastards.
Children raised in large numbers, outside the best setting of a father and a mother in a stable traditional family, is a recipe for the social disaster
described in these verses. I will not comment on them any further. They
speak well for themselves and well describe our current struggle. Here
too is the wrath revealed and the giving over to our sin that God seems
to have permitted .
VI. The Refusal to Repent - Although
they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve
death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve
of those who practice them. (Romans 1:32)
Here too is the mystery of our iniquity,
of our stubborn refusal to repent, no matter how high the body count,
how clear the evidence. Let us pray we will still come to our senses.
But if not, God has a record of allowing civilizations to come and go,
nations to rise and fall. If we do not love life we do not have to have
it. If we want lies rather than truth, we can have them and feel their
full effects.
But somewhere God is saying,
When I shut up
the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the
land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by
my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from
their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive
their sin and will heal their land. Now my eyes will be open and my ears
attentive to the prayers offered in this place. (2 Chron 7:14-15)
Oremus!
