What does it mean to suppress the truth in unrighteousness (Romans 1:18)?

This accordingly leads the apostle into the earlier portion of his great argument, and first of all in a preparatory way. Here we pass out of the introduction of the epistle. "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness" (ver. 18). This is what made the gospel to be so sweet and precious, and, what is more, absolutely necessary, if he would escape certain and eternal ruin. There is no hope for man otherwise; for the gospel is not all that is now made known. Not only is God's righteousness revealed, but also His wrath. It is not said to be revealed in the gospel. The gospel means His glad tidings for man. The wrath of God could not possibly be glad tidings. It is true, it is needful for man to learn; but in nowise is it good news. There is then the solemn truth also of divine wrath. It is not yet executed. It is "revealed," and this too "from heaven." There is no question of a people on earth, and of God's wrath breaking out in one form or another against human evil in this life. The earth, or, at least, the Jewish nation, had been familiar with such dealings of God in times past. But now it is "the wrath of God from heaven;" and consequently it is in view of eternal things, and not of those that touch present life on the earth.

Hence, as God's wrath is revealed from heaven, it is against every form of impiety — "against all ungodliness." Besides this, which seems to be a most comprehensive expression for embracing every sort and degree of human iniquity, we have one very specifically named. It is against the "unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness." To hold the truth in unrighteousness would be no security. Alas! we know how this was in Israel, how it might be, and has been, in Christendom. God pronounces against the unrighteousness of such; for if the knowledge, however exact, of God's revealed mind was accompanied by no renewal of the heart, if it was without life towards God, all must be vain. Man is only so much the worse for knowing the truth, if he holds it ever so fast with unrighteousness. There are some that find a difficulty here, because the expression "to hold" means holding firmly. But it is quite possible for the unconverted to be tenacious of the truth, yet unrighteous in their ways; and so much the worse for them. Not thus does God deal with souls. If His grace attract, His truth humbles, and leaves no room for vain boasting and self-confidence. What He does is to pierce and penetrate the man's conscience. If one may so say, He thus holds the man, instead of letting the man presume that he is holding fast the truth. The inner man is dealt with, and searched through and through.

Nothing of this is intended in the class that is here brought before us. They are merely persons who plume themselves on their orthodoxy, but in a wholly unrenewed condition. Such men have never been wanting since the truth has shone on this world; still less are they now. But the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against them pre-eminently. The judgments of God will fall on man as man, but the heaviest blows are reserved for Christendom. There the truth is held, and apparently with firmness too. This, however, will be put to the test by-and-by. But for the time it is held fast, though in unrighteousness. Thus the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against (not only the open ungodliness of men, but) the orthodox unrighteousness of those that hold the truth in unrighteousness.

(V. 18) Verse 18 contains a general statement which covers the whole section. It is the indictment against all men, which will be fully proved by the details that follow in verses 19 to 3:20. Men are proved to be impious (N.Tn) and unrighteous. Impiety is the contempt with which men treat the witness that God has given of Himself. Unrighteousness refers to their evil practices. Moreover, it is proved that men hold the truth in unrighteousness. The heathen, the moralist, and the Jew, all had some measure of truth, but they used the truth they had for evil purposes. The heathen turned the light of creation into an occasion for idolatry. The Jew used the law to boast in themselves. Alas the same principle is at work in Christendom. The love of God is used to deny the holiness of God. The truth is advanced to maintain error.

Against all this evil, disclosed by the testing of man, the wrath of God is revealed. The Cross that demonstrates the righteousness of God to save the sinner that believes, also demonstrates the wrath of God against sin. It is the wrath of God revealed from heaven, and it is against all impiety and unrighteousness. In Old Testament days God's wrath was revealed in governmental judgments that overtook certain individuals, or nations, because of certain sins committed against the partial light that they had. Now it is no longer a limited expression of wrath according to what man is on earth, but wrath revealed according to the holy nature of God in heaven; and it is against all sin, wherever that sin may be found.

The apostle does not overlook the difference as to light therefore; his argument is, that the light man has he is not true to. The knowledge of the heathen is ample to test which way his heart inclines. He is not judged by the darkness which he cannot help, but by the light which he refuses. How can he plead his lack of that from which he turns wherever he finds it? Man's course has not been, as he would vainly have it, the evolution of a creature whom God has burdened with difficulties, yet who struggles upward under the burden, but of one whose struggles are with the God who made him, and against the Hand that would even now relieve him of a burden self-imposed.

(1) Thus the wrath of God is revealed from heaven upon all impiety and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness. If one can find a person then who has no truth to hold, he cannot come under this wrath revealed. "Impiety" is the characteristic of that for which men are condemned: a heart away from God, and which on that account deals perversely with whatever truth it has. That is the indictment; and it is broad enough to cover the whole race of fallen man. There are not two classes in this statement, as some have thought: for the express argument of the apostle here is that Gentiles who have not revelation have truth sufficient to make them without excuse. Wrath is thus upon all; though love may seek and act at the same time: "we," says the apostle, speaking of himself and believers in general," were … children of wrath, even as others" (Eph. 2:3). Thus he immediately goes on now to say of the Gentiles outside of revelation that they have nevertheless a constant manifestation of God before their eyes. Thus they "hold the truth in unrighteousness; because what may be known of God is manifest among them: for God has manifested it unto them." And he proceeds at once to speak of creation. It is a testimony that we think too little about, even as Christians, and naturally do not credit it with much power of appeal to heathen minds. The very glory of the Christian revelation makes all else seem dull indeed. We argue back also from the condition of the heathen into which, whatever the testimony of nature, they yet lapsed, to depreciate that which could not keep them from lapsing. But this, forcible as it may appear, is no real argument. It is exactly the same as that which the heathen might and do urge against Christianity itself from the condition of numbers under the light of it. In this way what bears witness of the evil in man is made to discredit the wisdom and goodness of God. The apostle would say, "Let God be true and every man a liar." Surely that is the proper view, which nature itself confirms: the clouds are from the earth which conceal the brightness of the heavens. Allow that there is sin in man which could make him reject and crucify the Son of God Himself, you cannot accept an argument which would equally deny the glory of God in Him because men "saw no beauty in Him, that they should desire Him."

But the Version of κατεχόντων in verse 18 calls for the more notice, as the Company adopt a sense which has prevailed extensively among ancients and moderns; yet is it not the primary force of the word but rather a possible contextual modification, which the context here in my judgment proves inadmissible. The word means, not simply like ἔχειν, to have, but to have thoroughly, to take (Matt. 21:38, Luke 14:9), to possess (1 Cor. 8:30), to hold, or keep if there be danger of losing, to hold fast (Luke 8:5; 1 Cor. 11:2, 1 Cor. 15:2; 1 Thess. 5:21, etc.); if there be an opposing power, to withhold or hinder. (2 Thess. 2:5-6.) What then is the connection of the passage helping us to determine which of these shades of meaning is best here? The apostle (ver. 16) was not ashamed of the gospel, for it is God's power unto salvation to every one that believeth, both Jew first and Greek. For God's righteousness is revealed therein from faith unto faith, according as it is written, But the righteous shall live by faith, verse 17. This may be fairly regarded as the subject-matter of the epistle. The next verse states summarily why such an intervention of grace was requisite if a man was to be saved righteously. For there is revealed God's wrath from heaven against (or upon) all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men that possess or hold the truth in unrighteousness. This is precisely what is unfolded in what follows to the end of Rom. 3:20: first, every sort of ungodliness in the Gentile world, gross to the end of chapter 1, and more refined in the first half (vers. 1-16) of Rom. 2; where secondly he turns to the proof of unrighteousness in those that hold the truth in unrighteousness, which marks the self-satisfied and unbelieving Jew. Nor is anything more common in Christendom than truth, or orthodoxy, held ever so firmly along with total disregard of practical righteousness. It was notoriously so at that time among the Jews. Assuredly this is a phase of evil against which God's wrath is revealed; and the warning is as solemn as it is instructive in the most comprehensive treatise inspiration furnishes on the foundation of Christianity. Stifling or hindering the truth is a part of men's ungodliness no doubt; but for this very reason it does not fit in so strikingly with the Spirit's distinction between every sort of ungodliness and unrighteousness of those that hold the truth in unrighteousness. It appears to me then that "hold down" or "hinder," as the Revisers (English and American) say, does not give the true sense, nor does the marginal alternative "withhold" of the previous English Versions, still less "detain" of the Rhemish, with the Vulgate, Syriac, and Arabic. The Coptic is right, if I may judge from Wilkins. The Ethiopic is there quite unreliable, I believe therefore that the Authorised Version is right, not the Revision.

Rom. 1:17 "from" faith is here objectionable, as loading the reader naturally to the error of conceiving from one degree of faith to another, from less to more. This is not at all the thought any more than "by" in the Revised Version, which makes no just sense with "is being revealed." Hence the Revisers separated it from ἀπ., its true connection, to "righteousness," which alters the truth and mars it. In the gospel God's righteousness is revealed by faith unto faith in the gospel. — Still worse in 18 is the rendering of the Revisers "hold down," or of the Americans "hinder." Either is to lose the point, which is to mark God's wrath against not only every sort of ungodliness, but unrighteousness of men that hold the truth in unrighteousness. Firm orthodoxy may go with practical disregard of righteousness. Holding truth down is scarcely sense; hindering it adds no worthy idea to the phrase. Holding the truth is a solemn caution for professing Christians now, as once for Jews.

From verse 18 to verse 17 of Romans 2 the case of the Gentiles is considered, — a case in which there can be no plea of exemption from the revealed wrath of God. Their state is proven as not mere ignorance of the light, but as rejection of it. They were ungodly and unrighteous, “holding the truth in unrighteousness.” No excuse will avail for the so-called “ignorant heathen.” If ignorant of God it is not their mere misfortune; it is their sin; their ignorance is wilful. How solemn an indictment upon the human race! No escape can be found in the plea that man is simply a weak sinner: he has been proven a wilful sinner. for he is not, as some would fain protest, without distinct evidence of God. Even apart from God's revelation in His Word, the very barbarian “holds the truth in unrighteousness”: not gospel truth, assuredly, but the truth of God's “eternal power and divinity.”

First, Romans 1:18: "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness." It appears to me, that the ordinary punctuation here mars the sense. Its force I apprehend is this, "all ungodliness, and unrighteousness of men that hold the truth in unrighteousness"; and this is a most important distinction, for it brings in the whole Gentile world guilty; as the apostle afterwards proves. God having been revealed in Christ, wrath is revealed against all ungodliness without exception, because it is such, and as ungodliness, ἀσέβειαν. Your Greek readers will remember that worshipping Gentiles are called by the opposite word to this, that is, σεβομένους, or "devout." Hence we have two great classes — ungodliness universal; and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness .

Again, this verse is not, as some suppose, limited as a preface to the proof of Gentile depravity; it is rather the thesis in brief, which is opened out in the rest of Romans 1, 2, 3, down to verse 21, which resumes the treatment of God's righteousness, and begins the details of that which we had in Romans 1:17. I understand, therefore, that verse 18 gives first the general description of human ungodliness in every phase, and then the unrighteousness which was at that time most conspicuous in the Jews who combined with practical injustice a tenacious hold or possession of the truth: the former demonstrated to the end of Romans 1; the latter (after the transition of Rom. 2:1-16.) pursued from Romans 2:17 to Romans 3:20. Had this two-fold aspect been apprehended in the verse before us, the rendering of the Authorized Version would not have been deserted for "restraining the truth by unrighteousness," which is a sense framed to meet the condition of the heathen who were supposed here to be alone in the apostle's view. The same misconception wrought mischief in lowering the character both of the revelation of God's wrath from heaven, and of the truth in order to meet paganism. Admit the universal scope of the moral description with a specific reference to those who held the truth in unrighteousness, and the sense which results is as easy as it is all-important, the fitting introduction to the entire episode that follows till the apostle takes up his proper theme, God's righteousness revealed in the gospel.

Hence this divine wrath revealed from heaven has for its object every kind of godlessness (πᾶσαν ἀσέβειαν) and especially men's unrighteousness that hold the truth in unrighteousness. It is no longer a particular nation under a law which judged acts of transgression, though it gave the knowledge of a sinful root underneath, while the rest of the nations were comparatively overlooked. 'Hear this word that the Lord has spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up from the land of Egypt, saying, You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities." (Amos 3:1-2.) The veil is rent; and God shining out, as it were, discerns and judges all everywhere inconsistent with Himself. At the same time He sends in the gospel a free and full remission of sins to every believer. Thus, while every form of Gentile evil is morally judged as contrary to God's nature, the Jew, if unrighteous, is implied from the outset to be in a yet more awful condition. "Salvation is of the Jews." They had the promises, and the law, and in part at least the truth. But the language is so comprehensive as to be quite as applicable, if not more so, to the professing Christian now with his enlarged light, grace, and the truth more fully revealed in Christ. Increase of privileges, if abused, is but increase of condemnation. And what more just, the enemies of God themselves being judges and the cause their own? Thus it seems to me that πᾶσαν ("all") extends to the second part of the description as well as to the first, and embraces every sort of unrighteousness where men hold the truth in unrighteousness, no less than every kind of impiety. Such men might not be strictly impious; they possess the truth; but along with this, being unrighteous, they cause the truth and name of God to be thereby blasphemed.

Some find a difficulty in the last clause, and, assuming that κατεχόντων, if here taken in the sense of "holding," must have it only in the lowest degree, they contend for the meaning of "holding back" or restraint as in 2 Thessalonians 2:6-7, which they persuade themselves is suitable to our context. My conviction is that κατέχω retains here its usual emphasis of possession or holding fast, where moral things are in question, and that this is necessary to the solemn lesson here conveyed. For the apostle is speaking of God's wrath as against not merely all impiety in general but specifically men's unrighteousness who ever so stubbornly keep the truth in unrighteousness. God is not mocked. His Spirit is the Holy Spirit as well as the Spirit of truth. He must have the truth held in righteousness; for otherwise it is not Christ, the Second Man, but only the first man in another shape, and in a shape pre-eminently hateful to Himself. How many feel keenly, dispute hotly, and in other days have contended in deadly warfare for the truth they held, whose works denied God, being abominable, disobedient, and to every good work reprobate! The Jews were a standing witness of this perilous religion then: Christendom, Popery, Protestantism, the truest dogmatic reaching you please, is not a whit safer now, where the professor does not pursue holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.

128 This closes the introductory verses. The Person of the Lord Jesus and the righteousness of God are the great thesis of the glad tidings of God. One revealed as the Deliverer, the Son of God, claimed the obedience of faith; the other, still on the principle of faith, revealed as the ground on which man could have a part in purposed blessing through grace. The apostle now turns to what made this righteousness of God necessary to us. "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness, and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness." This is a most important principle. It is not governmental wrath, such as bringing the Assyrian against Israel, or leading them captive to Babylon - a thing of this world, while God was hidden still behind the veil. It tells us of the incompatibility of God's nature with evil. God's wrath was revealed against everything inconsistent with His nature - wrath from heaven against all ungodliness; and, where the truth was known, and men might seem to be nearer to God, as the Jews, if held in unrighteousness, wrath was against such as so held it too. Wrath against all ungodliness was revealed from heaven; Gentile, Jew, men in every condition, came under the judgment. It was not a hidden God dealing in earthly judgment, but God Himself fully revealed according to His own nature, abhorrent of evil, in necessary wrath against all evil, wherever it was met. His nature could admit no evil. Dispensational ways there might have been - government, patience. But now wrath was revealed from heaven against all evil, wherever it was found.