Chapter 1--cont'd
This may sound strange, but the good new begins with some bad news! God's awesome anger is also revealed from heaven. He is adamantly against all the ungodliness and unrighteousness of people, who suppress the truth because they love sin more than truth. You see; God has partially revealed himself to every person through both their own conscience and creation itself. His invisible presence and moral attributes have been easily discernible from the beginning of time. The fingerprints of his divinity and eternal power have clearly branded all he has made. Therefore people are without excuse for their unbelief in him. All throughout world history, although people knew God was there, they didn't honor his Divinity, neither were they thankful to him. Rather, they invented their own man-centered religions and philosophies of life thereby snuffing out the light of spiritual knowledge in their hearts. They claimed to be getting wiser, but they were actually becoming more foolish. They "remade" the invisible God, who is glorious and incorruptible, into gods of their own imagination- idols made in the likeness of human beings, birds, beasts and even bugs.
Comments:
The script of the "meta-narrative" of human history that we have typically been taught is more like how a "sophisticated and refined" belief in one God (monotheism) grew up over many centuries out of the context of a superstitious belief in many gods (polytheism). I remember being quite shocked as a young believer in Christ as I first read the apostle Paul's overview of humanity's story. It's more like "devolution" than "evolution"...on the spiritual side of things at least.
Several things stand out to me that challenged my presuppositions...and still challenge my soul because I would really like to believe better things about us as a species. But then I simply read again stories from world history, not to mention the daily news from around the globe, and I can't deny or contradict what Paul elaborates upon concerning the spiritual condition of human race.
First, is how connected we all are to one another in our cultural and family contexts. We like to think more individualistically about our lives and we underestimate how entwined, on many levels, we are to our ancestry--for good of ill. Certainly, the scriptures tell us that God sees and evaluates us on an individual basis, but we are greatly influenced spiritually by our cultural settings.
Second, is the fact that God has granted to every person who has ever lived a "general revelation" of the reality of his existence. This general or "natural knowledge" of God is graciously given to inspire us to seek more "specific revelation" of who this is who has made us and displayed his power throughout all creation. We instinctively know that "creation" implies a "Creator" and it takes a deliberate effort on our part to push this knowledge away from our consciousness. The ancient "pre-Christian" philosophers (they did pretty well in many cases) understood and affirmed this and it wasn't until DesCartes (1596-1650...ironically, a religious man himself) that more modern philosophy emerged and pressured us to doubt everything we instinctively know before we can rebuild our base of knowledge.
Third, is how dishonor and ingratitude toward "the God who is there" is the genesis of our spiritual death that then bleeds over into our whole lives and relationships. When we become so sick of being and living "disconnected" from our Creator and Heavenly Father, a great way to find our way home is to stop in our tracks and tell him again from the depths of our hearts that we believe he is there and that he is powerful and good and simply ask him to reveal to us more of who he is, what he has done and what he is doing. And...as we will discover as Romans continues...we should ponder (and come to terms with) the Person and Work of Jesus his Son.
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