Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Romans 1:25

"for that they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen." — Romans 1:25 (ASV)

The opening word “therefore” carries the reader all the way back to the mention of the revelation of God’s wrath, taking in also what lies between. The false worship just pictured is God’s judgment for abandoning the true worship. Human religion in its various cultic forms is a species of punishment for spurning the revelation God has given of himself in nature. In many cases it is a means of keeping people so occupied that they never arrive at a confrontation with the true God.

“God gave them over” becomes a refrain (vv.24, 26, 28). The same expression is used of God’s judgment on Israel for idolatry (Acts 7:42). In our passage the reference is principally to Gentiles. We are not told how this giving over was implemented, but most likely we are to think of it in negative terms— i.e., that God simply took his hands off and let willful rejection of himself produce its ugly results in human life.

At this point a problem surfaces. How is it that we have a reference to sexual immorality in v.24 and again in vv.26–27? Is this a case of repetition? No, the immorality lies in different areas. The earlier reference is to cultic prostitution, the latter to immoral relations in ordinary life. Paul was no stranger to the matter he discusses here. Writing from Corinth, where the temple of Aphrodite was fabled to have once housed hundreds of cult prostitutes, he must have been keenly aware of how this scourge affected the moral life of that city so adversely. How true is the observation that “their foolish hearts were darkened.” “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie” (lit. “the lie”). This is the lie above all others—the contention that something or someone is to be venerated in place of the true God. According to Paul elsewhere, history will repeat itself in that when the man of lawlessness is revealed and demands to be worshiped, people will follow him and reap ruin because they have refused the truth and have believed the lie (2 Thessalonians 2:3–12). There, too, God gives them over to strong delusion (v.11).

Paul’s indictment here is that by a wretched exchange human beings came to worship and serve “created things rather than the Creator.” They have wholly rid themselves of God by substituting other objects in his place. This should be sufficient to banish the notion that the practice of idolatry is simply using a manmade image in order to worship God (cf. Hosea 14:3). Contemplating this abysmal betrayal, the apostle cannot resist an outburst to counteract it. The Creator “is forever praised.” God’s glory remains, even though unacknowledged by many of his creatures.