And according as they did not think good to have God in [their] knowledge, God gave them up to a reprobate mind to practise unseemly things;
The rest of Romans 1 lists one dark sin after another. Verse 28 gives the cause: men would not keep God in their thinking, so God handed them over to the very mind they had chosen.
The first clause is about the mind as much as the heart. Men weighed the matter and refused to approve of God.
Another translation renders verse 28: "And according as they did not think good to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up." They would give no approval to having God in their knowledge. That is as much a matter of the mind as of the heart, and both of these were corrupted. So "God gave them up to a reprobate mind," a mind that rejects the good and is therefore rejected by the good It is left to its own worthlessness and its wilful failure to see straight.
The word translated "debased" echoes the first clause, and it can carry more than one sense.
The word adokimos is translated "reprobate" here, as it is elsewhere. That word suits the phrase well. It sets their refusal to approve of keeping God in their knowledge against His giving them over to a "disapproved" mind. But the word may also bear an active sense. It would then mean an "undiscerning" mind — the sentence passed on their presumption in rejecting God after pretending to test and try the matter.
The sins listed in verses 29 to 31 are not a random collection. They all grow from one soil, and that soil is the heart.
When summing up the sins of the Gentiles the apostle says, "God gave them up to a debased mind." Why? Because "they did not see fit to acknowledge God." (Rom. 1:28.) This was the root, and all the other sins were but the fruits. God does not ask for your goodness. He wants the heart, and this is what man does not like to give.
What men do to God's character, they end up doing to their own.
If men lose the knowledge of God, if they depart from Him, if they corrupt God, they will corrupt themselves. God gave them up to a debased mind because they had corrupted Him and did not want to keep Him in their knowledge. That is why all the unspeakable vices of the pagan world flourish.
This is the third and last time in the chapter that God gives men up. Each time reaches a different part of the person.
Men chose to give up the light that God had given of Himself. The result is that man is given up to a debased mind, abandoned to his depraved thoughts. The terrible effect of sin is to leave men with defiled bodies (v. 24), degraded affections (v. 26), and deformed minds (v. 28). Man is fallen body, soul, and spirit.
Man moved first in this exchange.
Three times over we get the phrase, with slight variations: "God gave them up to ...". If men object to thinking of God and give Him up, they have no ground of complaint when He gives them up. And if they give up God, and so give up good as well, they find themselves given up to everything that is evil and degrading. There is an ironic justice about God's government.
God's handing men over is a real act. Even so, He is not the author of the sin that follows.
So God gave them up to reap what they had sown. He did not make them sin — God forbid the thought! He dropped the reins on man's neck, so that what was in sinful man's heart would come out — in my heart, reader, and yours.
The verse also settles a question about human history.
But there is more: they did not want to keep God in their knowledge. So God gave them up to a debased mind, to do what ought not to be done. That is where the lawlessness, selfishness, and injustice so common on earth come from. A state of savagery, then, is the fruit of man's will. It is not the original condition of the human race.
Commentators apply the verse beyond the ancient world to anyone who edits God out of his account of things.
It is only Scripture that throws real light on the subject, and to refuse or neglect what the word of God teaches, is only to go far astray... There is a solemn warning in Scripture, which tells us of men not liking to retain God in their knowledge, being given over by God to "a debased mind" (Rom. 1:28).
- Root. Every sin listed after this verse grows from one root: men did not see fit to keep God in their knowledge. God wants the heart, not a show of goodness.
- Verdict. Man's word to God is "not approved"; God's word back is a "disapproved" — or undiscerning — mind. The punishment matches the crime.
- Reach. Three times God gives men up in this chapter, touching body, affections, and mind — man is fallen in every part.
- Restraint. God does not make anyone sin; He drops the reins and lets the heart show what was always in it.
- Result. Savagery is where human will ended up. It is not where the human race started.
being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, covetousness, malice; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil dispositions; whisperers,
This verse opens the list of evils that follows God's handing men over to a mind He has rejected. It begins not with an act but with a condition: man is filled, and the question is who that includes.
The sins named here are the outcome of something that happened earlier in the chapter. One writer traces the whole list back to one decision, and shows how far the damage spread:
Men chose to give up the light God had given of Himself. The result is that man is given over to a mind God has rejected, abandoned to his own corrupt thoughts. The dreadful effect of sin is to leave men with defiled bodies (verse 24), degraded affections (verse 26), and deformed minds (verse 28). Man is fallen body, soul, and spirit.
The word "filled" carries the weight here. It is about who owns a man, and about where the evil sits:
What follows is a list of the evils man has filled himself with. It might well make the heart recoil in horror. But having refused God the right of possession, then evil has taken possession of him. He is not the neutral, self-controlled man he would like to boast of being. He is the abject slave of sin. Notice how this list strikes at the thoughts and passions of the heart. The evil does show itself openly in time. But God here uncovers and exposes man's inner being — what he is "full" of — the thoughts and lusts of his mind and heart. Who can escape the conclusion that we have been found out?
Two Greek words stand behind the English word "covetousness". The one here is the wider of the two:
Both pleonexia and philarguria refer to covetousness, but there appears to be a clear difference between them. Pleonexia (from words meaning "to have more") is not limited to money, and often goes together with open wickedness. The force of the word is "desiring more than is necessary", and so "an over-reaching to get". It is used this way of the lusts of the flesh in Romans 1:29 and Ephesians 4:19, where English Bibles translate it "greediness", and Ephesians 5:3, and so on. Scripture declares it to be idolatry in Colossians 3:5.
Some older Bibles include "fornication" in this verse; the ESV does not. One commentator explains why he leaves it out, and reads the list as three deliberate groups:
In verse 29 I have left out "fornication". Good manuscript evidence supports leaving it out, and the wording itself seems to me to tip the scale against it… As I see it, the first group is personal evil. The second is evil done to other people. The third does not give roots of moral corruption in the abstract, personal or relative, but fully formed wicked characters — and it does this in an order that is not random and not hard to see.
It is tempting to read the catalogue as a portrait of unusually bad people. One writer says plainly who it includes:
You have there a list of crimes that brings the flush of shame to the cheek even to read it. It stands there not as some exceptional result of man's sin, but as the natural fruit of his departure from God. And it covers every unsaved person: "they did not like to retain God in their knowledge." … It is as though the Spirit of God set the root and the fruit side by side and said to men: cut loose from God, and you give free rein to every kind of evil the flesh is capable of.
The words quoted there are from verse 28 in an older translation.
One writer sets this list beside a warning about people who keep the outward form of godliness:
Timothy was to turn away from those who had the outward form of godliness but denied its power. Compare that with Romans 1:29-31, and you will see that the evil he had to turn away from was as bad as that among the pagan nations. Being in the place of light, and under the pretence of light, only made it worse.
- Root. Men chose not to keep God in their knowledge; everything in this verse grows out of that one refusal.
- Handover. God gave them over to a mind He has rejected, so body, affections and mind are all damaged together.
- Filled. Refuse God possession, and evil takes possession instead. What God exposes is the thoughts and passions, not just the deeds.
- Reach. "Covetousness" here is more than love of money. It is wanting more than is right, an over-reaching to get — and Scripture calls that idolatry.
- Mirror. This is not a portrait of unusually wicked people. It is the normal fruit of leaving God — and the same evil can appear among those who keep the outward form of godliness, where the light makes it worse, not better.
back-biters, hateful to God, insolent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
Paul is describing what people become once they turn from God. The words run from the tongue to the heart to the home. Where does such a list come from? And does it describe strangers far away, or the human heart itself?
The list is not a survey of unusually wicked people. Commentators trace it back to one decision made earlier in the chapter — that men did not want to keep God in their knowledge.
You have there a catalogue of crime that brings shame to the cheek even to read it. It is given, not as some exceptional result of man's sin, but as the natural fruit of his departure from God. It is given in a way that includes every unsaved person: "Since they did not see fit to acknowledge God." … It is as though the Spirit of God put the root and the fruit side by side. He said to men: cut loose from God, and you give rein to every form of evil the flesh is capable of.
The damage does not stop at one part of a person.
The awful effect of sin is to leave men with defiled bodies (24), degraded affections (26), and deformed minds (28). Man is fallen body, soul, and spirit.
The words are not thrown together at random. One commentator sees three groups running through verses 29–31.
I think the first group is personal evil. The second is evil that involves other people. The third brings out, not roots of moral corruption taken on their own, whether personal or relative, but fully formed wicked characters. The order is systematic and easy to see.
Commentators differ on the wording here — some read it as "hateful to God." Either way, the charge covers everyone.
Only think of anyone being a hater of such a One as God. And we know that all who are not lovers must be haters. People may not see this; very few would be willing to admit they are outright haters of God. But there is no neutral ground in this great question. We must either be for or against… It often happens that the heart's deep-seated hostility to God comes out in hatred of His people, His word, His worship, His service.
The word behind "haughty" is not simple self-confidence. Someone else always suffers for it.
Pride. There are several words translated this way in the Greek New Testament. The one used here conveys the sense of a spirit of self-exaltation in a man, combined with the belittling of others. The Pharisees are glaring examples. They trusted in themselves that they were righteous and treated others with contempt (Luke 18:9). But the Gentiles are no more free of guilt here than the Jews (Rom. 1:30). This arrogance shows itself in boastful words and self-glorifying deeds, but it starts inside the heart.
The phrase points to invention turned the wrong way. Its victims are the people who confess God.
Some people are by nature incapable of finding out the way of peace, yet they hit upon ingenious devices. The Spirit recognises them as "inventors of evil" (Rom. 1:30). Their devices vary the miseries of those who openly confess God in Satan's world. Turning away from evil makes a man a target. Some tolerate no departure from the established habits of sin.
The last item looks mild beside hatred of God. Yet Paul puts it in the same sentence.
You can see the value God places on a child's obedience from His estimate of disobedience… The apostle also marks disobedience to parents as a characteristic sign of the perilous times of the last days (2 Tim. 3:1-2). It is a mark of great moral corruption (Rom. 1:30). Even a little knowledge of life shows that the first step down has often started with disobedience to parents.
One writer sets this list beside 2 Timothy 3, where almost the same words describe people inside the church.
Romans 1:29-31 describes the moral condition of the heathen world in Paul's day. But 2 Timothy 3:1-5 describes the moral condition of the professing Christian masses of the last times. These are church members who have the form of godliness and deny its power.
The verse is not the last word. Titus 3 sets the same darkness beside something far greater.
How deserving of hatred — as in Romans 1:30, "haters of God," or perhaps more correctly, "hateful to God." … Yet notice the glorious, surprising contrast: "But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared." Divine love goes beyond human depravity. Weigh the two statements in your mind. Balance one against the other, and see the astounding weight of God's love over man's guilt.
- Root — the whole list is fruit. The root is that men did not want God in their knowledge.
- Reach — the ruin runs through the whole man: defiled body, degraded affections, deformed mind.
- Range — the evil moves from the tongue to the heart to the home. It touches every relationship.
- Repeat — the same list returns in 2 Timothy 3, among people who keep the form of godliness. It is a mirror, not a museum piece.
- Remedy — God weighs the guilt only to outweigh it. Divine love goes further still.
void of understanding, faithless, without natural affection, unmerciful;
Paul closes his charge against the nations with four short words for what men had become. They are not random vices: commentators trace them back to one cause, and forward to a startling parallel in a later letter.
One writer ties every item in the list back to a decision men made about God. He quotes verse 28 from an older translation, and traces the damage through the whole person — mind included.
This catalogue of crimes describes a condition that goes back to one root. When men had some knowledge of God, "They did not think good to have God in their knowledge." Men chose to give up the light that God had given of Himself. So God gave man over to a reprobate mind, abandoned to his depraved thoughts. The awful effect of sin is to leave men with defiled bodies (24), degraded affections (26), and deformed minds (28). Man is fallen body, soul, and spirit.
The terms are not synonyms piled up for effect. Each names a different circle of broken obligation, and they are arranged in a deliberate order — moving outward first, then inward.
There the apostle starts with the more outward "covenant-breakers", or more generally "faithless". He moves next to the lack of family affection, and then to the more personal "unmerciful", or pitiless. In 2 Timothy, where he predicts how the Christian world will fall away, he goes from within outwards. There, in place of "covenant-breakers", he puts "implacable", that is, defiant of every bond.
Older English versions add "implacable" to this verse. One commentator judged that the word does not belong here, and explained how it likely arrived.
"Implacable" lacks authority, since the best and most ancient manuscripts leave it out. So it is dropped from verse 31. It probably came in here through its link with "without natural affection" in 2 Timothy 3:3.
The ESV follows that judgment and keeps only the four words. The King James Version has "implacable" as well.
"Heartless" — the loss of ordinary family love — can look like the mildest word on the list. One writer treats it as the opposite: the failure of something God Himself stamped with His approval.
There is natural affection; but if it gets hold of us it may become idolatry. A child or a husband may take our heart from God, but being without affection is one of the signs of the last times. In the last days men are not only not spiritual, but they are not natural. The Lord puts His seal on every relationship. It is an awful thing to see a child failing in affection to its parent, even if that child is not converted. The nearer the relationship, the more dreadful it is.
Paul writes a second list, in 2 Timothy 3, describing the closing days of Christian profession — and the wording overlaps this one closely. That overlap is used as evidence against the idea that the human race has morally improved.
They prove, beyond all question, that the notion of an improved world is false. In some places it has changed its dress, but not its real spirit. It has taken off the robes of paganism and put on the cloak of Christianity. But under that cloak you can still see every hideous feature of paganism's spirit. Compare Romans 1:29-31 with 2 Timothy 3. There you will find the very traits of human nature at its most pagan, reappearing alongside an outward form of godliness.
This indictment stands in a letter whose subject is God's righteousness offered to sinners. Set the darkest description of man beside what God did, and one of the two is plainly greater.
Divine love goes far beyond human depravity. Despite all the well-deserved judgment, despite the hateful condition, despite the whole tide of sin, the kindness and love of God appear, and by His grace He justifies! Weigh the two statements against each other, and see how astonishingly the love of God outweighs the guilt of man.
- Root — every item in verses 29–31 grows from one decision: men did not think it good to keep God in their knowledge.
- Ruin — the damage runs through the whole man: defiled bodies, degraded affections, deformed minds.
- Range — the words move from the outside in: broken agreements, then lost family love, then a heart with no pity.
- Repeat — the same traits reappear in 2 Timothy 3 among people wearing a form of godliness; the dress changes, the nature does not.
- Remedy — set against this list, the kindness and love of God weigh more. He justifies by grace the very man described here.
who knowing the righteous judgment of God, that they who do such things are worthy of death, not only practise them, but have fellow delight in those who do [them].
The verse closes Paul's account of how humanity drifted away from God. It ends not with ignorance but with applause. Men who know what God has decided about such conduct still do it — and go further, cheering on others who do the same.
The word Paul uses is not vague awareness. It carries the sense of personal recognition:
In some passages this compound word, especially as a verb, means "certain personal knowledge, and the recognition of the truth of a thing that follows from it." It is "recognising because we know." See Matthew 7:16, 20 … Romans 1:32.
Knowing about judgment does not, by itself, change how people live. That is the sting of this verse.
They are not ignorant of God's righteous judgment against such things, or of the truth that those who do them are worthy of death. They know this. The testimony of intelligence and conscience leaves them no escape. But it makes no difference to their evil course. They know that they will reap as they sow, yet go on sowing the abominations to which they have yielded themselves. Not only this, but they enjoy the evil of others, finding pleasure in the very thought of sin, and encouraging it by friendly company with those bent on it. How bold, how arrogant, how debased, how enslaved is the creature who was once "made in the image of God"!
Approving the sins of others is a step beyond committing them. A person swept along by his own desire at least has an appetite driving him; the spectator has none, and still sides with the wrongdoer.
Natural conscience knew that God judged such things to be worthy of death according to the just requirements of His nature. Still, they not only did them. They took pleasure in those who did them, even when their own lusts were not carrying them away.
Earlier in the chapter God hands people over to what they have chosen. Some treat that as an excuse: if God abandoned them, who can blame them? The verse itself answers it.
It is true that in His governmental dealings God has given men over to the vices they love. He has done so because they have turned away from Him and have chosen to indulge their lusts. But despite this, they have in them by nature (such is the make-up of their being) a sense that God is just in sentencing them to death. They know they deserve to die. They know the sentence that condemns them to die is entirely just. This is true of the lowest, of the most degraded and abandoned. None, then, can excuse themselves, or their sins, in God's court on the ground that He gave them over to judicial blindness.
If conscience knows the verdict, rulers and lawmakers might look like the exception. Paul's closing line refuses that comfort, and the ancient historians agree.
Someone may ask: were there not rulers, kings, and magistrates who made laws against wickedness and punished crime? "Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them." So then, as now, the rulers or chiefs are the most wicked of all. For proof we have only to read any of the ancient historians. Leave man to himself, and the more power he has, the greater his wickedness … Crowds rushed together into amphitheatres to feast their eyes on cruel wickedness.
This list of evils is not left behind in the pagan past. Paul's description of the last days repeats it almost word for word, this time among people who claim to follow God.
Scripture reveals that "in the last days there will come times of difficulty" (2 Timothy 3:1). Then follows, almost word for word, the same description of the professing church that Scripture gives of the pagan world under the sentence of a debased mind (compare 2 Timothy 3:2-5 with Romans 1:28-32). … At the same time there is a form of godliness. It may be something very beautiful to attract the eye, but there is rottenness and dead men's bones inside.
- Known. The word for "knowing" means personal recognition, not a vague hunch.
- Kept. That knowledge changes nothing on its own; they know they will reap as they sow, and go on sowing.
- Cheered. Worse than doing evil is enjoying it in others, with no desire of their own pushing them.
- Excused? Being "given up" by God is no defence; even the most degraded still admit the sentence against them is just.
- Everywhere. The pattern runs from ancient rulers and crowds at the arena to a religion that looks beautiful outside and is rotten inside.