What is irreligion?

But this case of human reprobation is stated now in detail. Verses 18-23. The wrath of God is directed against all human ungodliness and unrighteousness, and that on the ground of their holding the truth in unrighteousness. The high thoughts of men, bent on their own pleasure, set themselves against the truth of God. Ignorance is not the primary cause of human opposition to God. It is the instinctive force of evil desire, which leads man to gratify the nearer and more importunate lusts of the flesh and of the mind, independently of God. But to act independently of God is practically to deny Him. Atheism is involved, in principle, in the very first departure of the creature from the position of simple dependence upon God. It is the assertion of an independent will, and thus the exercise, as it were, of an independent life. But man is God's creature — his life is God's breath. Hence, to live without God — in defiance, or even in forgetfulness of God — is virtually Atheism. It is the heart-Atheism of the fool, who says in his heart, "There is no God" (Ps. 14; 53).

But this is utterly without excuse. God has not left Himself without witness, that man should say, "Who and what is He?" Creation is for ever the universal witness of His power and Godhead. The evidence of God (to gnoston tou Theou) as Himself filling all things in creative and sustaining power, was present to every eye and to every heart, which was not fenced by the madness of willing ignorance against these manifestations of the Divine glory. Accordingly (verse 21), it is the knowledge which man had of God that really constituted the essence of his guilt. "When they knew God, they glorified Him not as God," etc. The apostacy of man from God, is an action of the will. The sense of dependence, of grateful homage and allegiance to God-ward, was what man could no longer brook, when once awakened by Satan to a consciousness of his own powers. This was the case originally, when in Eden, ere yet the fatal transgression had been done, the poison of the serpent's tongue had already corrupted the pure mind of God's creature by the suggestion of self-secured, self-dependent happiness. "Ye shall be as gods!" Such is ever the dream of the natural heart, forgetting, the while, that the powers, and the very will, which are thus set in God's place, exist and continue only by the sufferance of God.

It is an awful display of human character that is exposed by the Divine light of life and truth. Satan, who had nothing in the Son of God, is in full possession of the world. It is he who stirs men's hearts to lift rebellious tongues and hands against all truth; for he is the prince and director of this world, whose authorities combined to crucify the Lord of glory. The course and effects of human evil are varied and tremendous, but its principle is simple. If man be not in willing subjection to God, he must (in imagination and desire) be above Him. The lusts of their father filled the hearts of the enemies of Jesus (John 8:44); but he first taught sin to man by tempting him to rise, by inspiring him with the desire to have and to enjoy, in independence and despite of God. If human conduct has another source or motive than the Divine will, it is virtually atheism. It is that deep revolt of heart for which no cure exists in nature, and which grace alone can quell and turn to perfect and abiding peace, through the once made reconciliation of the cross.

It may still further help, for the point is of paramount importance, if we ask the reader to test himself by four words used by the apostle Paul of the past condition of those who had become believers; words therefore which describe the condition of all unconverted souls. Turn, then, to Romans 5:6, there he says, "For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly." Here are two words, "without strength," and "ungodly." We may take the latter first, and we ask you, reader, if you accept the term "ungodly" as true of you? Do you say, I am not so bad as that? Let us then inquire into the meaning of the word. Because the word has come to be applied to outward conduct, its real significance has been lost. As used in the scriptures it applies to the state of heart as well as to actions, and it means "godless," that is, to be without God — to feel and to act apart from God, without reference to Him or to His will. Suppose, now, I follow you into your house, and I see you taking your seat at the table without thanking God for His mercies; or if I accompany you to your chamber, and see you lay yourself down to rest at night without commending yourself to God, or seeking His protecting care, I should at once say, That is an ungodly man: he does not acknowledge God, he is truly godless.

105 Psalm 53, as we know, convicts of entire sinfulness those who have the best advantages. But the secret of this course is old too, and on that a few words. AU the path of the wicked comes from this. For him God is not. Faith does not exist, and God is not seen. This is the secret of all error in practice and in human reasoning. The more we examine the whole course of human action, the faults of us Christians, the various wanderings of philosophy, the more we shall find that no God is at the root of all. Here it is the case that the conscience takes no notice of God. The heart has no desire after Him, and the will works as if there were none. Man says so in his heart. Why should he say it? Because his conscience tells him there is one. His will would not have one; and, as God is not seen in His working, will sees only what it will. God is set aside, and the whole conduct is under the will's influence, as if no God existed. He takes pains to prove there is not if he thinks, because he cannot get on if there is; but he lifts himself up, and, deceiving himself, comes in practical condition to will there should be none - and not to think, but to act as if he thought, and that in purpose as well as act, as if there were none. In a certain sense, he even thinks so; for, being entirely occupied with present things, and blind through his alienation from God, his moral feelings dead, judging from present things, he can draw conclusions, not believe that there is one, and, living in his own thoughts thus formed, live in the thought there is none - says so in his heart. If conscience awakes, he knows well there is; but he lives in his will and the thoughts of his will, and for him there is no God.

The eastern section of that which professes the name of Christ is marked by idolatry; the western section is characterized either by the superstition of Rome or the rationalism of Protestant countries. But all these evils — idolatry, superstition, and materialism — lead by different roads to the same end — practical infidelity, or the entire exclusion of God, in fact, if not in name.

The word again condemns false confidence as to the intentions of our own hearts. The heart of man afar from God thinks to direct his own steps, and decides what he will do, without thinking of the will of God, or even of God at all. Possibly the thing intended may not be evil, it may not wound conscience, nor make it uneasy; but God is entirely forgotten; the man acts without God, as though the earth had been left to man, and God had withdrawn, and as though His will counted for nothing. Such a man, as far as regards religion, in the practical things of everyday life, lives in atheism. God is not in his thoughts; money and worldly ambition govern his heart, though he may not be exactly living in sinful pleasures. He has no sense that he belongs to God - bought, if he be a Christian, with the precious blood of Christ. He lays out his plans according to his own will, his own wisdom, and his worldly interests. God has no place in them, he is without God in the world, he seeks earthly things, and truly it is not in them that God is to be found. It is according to the will of God that we should labour to obtain what is necessary, and His blessing can be sought because it is His will. But this is not the question here. James speaks of one who would dispose of his time, and go and seek gain for himself without thinking of God, or looking to Him for guidance and the manifestation of His will. He does not know what the morrow will bring forth; he does not know whether his life will be prolonged until the next day; it is as a vapour which vanishes away. Such is life down here. It becomes us to say, "If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this or that."

Folly (aphrosune); so often in the Septuagint. "The fool hath said in his heart." He that is uninstructed, I suppose, and disregards both counsel and instruction. It borders therefore, as to both man and God, upon impiety, flowing from groundless independence of will, with no independence of understanding and knowledge. This in act or habit is, I suppose, folly, showing itself in recklessness of conduct - conduct inconsistent with the real relations and obligations under which we are. This as to God, it will be observed, is practical atheism. The Psalms and Proverbs are full of matter connected with this. It is sometimes put for the vile person - Nabal (a fool) but moros is used for that. It is intimately connected therefore with self-confidence and assumption; it may therefore have here moral connection with haughtiness (huperephania) and then we have great light upon Paul's use of it in 2 Corinthians 11. But it does not, nor ought to lose the weight of its simple sense, though this may lead us to the moral sources of it.

“Ungodly” means without God. We often use the word as if it only referred to the base and vile. It indeed refers to all unconverted people. Such may be religious and yet ungodly, that is without God. They know about Him, but there is no seeking Him. How many are religious merely because it is fashionable, or because their Sunday observances whitewash for them the worldliness of the week. This cannot be called seeking after God. Yet for such Christ died.

The Greek is ἄθεος, lit. 'without God,' and so translated in Eph. 2:12. It is used as a description of Gentiles as such by nature, and true of all the heathen world in their ignorance of God: not, as the term is now used, namely, one who wilfully refuses to acknowledge God's existence.

It is a proof how far the mind of man is alienated from God that even in Christendom, where His word is printed and available for all, and in the hands of those who profess and call themselves Christians, there is more contempt of the folly of idolatry than condemnation of its sin. And why in these "christian countries" is it contemned, if not through the light of the Word so generally neglected, and by some despised as of no more authority than cunningly devised fables? Christendom is in the condition of one who knew the Lord's will and did it not; its judgment will be "many stripes."

But there is a worse evil than idolatry and far more guilty; which is not merely a sin inevitably resulting from fallen man's mental constitution, but which implies and necessitates a Revelation from God: that worse sin is infidelity. Revelation was not necessary to make man an idolater; it was necessary to make him an infidel. In its widest meaning as designating those who have no faith, all idolaters in whatever condition of ignorance are infidels. But if we confine the word to its common acceptation, it is evident that a Revelation must be given before it can be rejected. And as the rejection of known truth is of earlier date than idolatry, no process or lapse of time was needed for its development. Its first form was the denial of God's word; as such it sprang fully equipped from the head of the first sinner. God said "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." The Serpent said "Ye shall not surely die." God's word was disbelieved, and Eve became the infidel. Pharaoh was an infidel; when the word of "I am" came to him, he said "Who is Jehovah that I should obey His voice." And Israel as having the oracles and the testimony of God were as much infidels as idolaters. As idolaters they clung to Egypt's idols, as infidels they said Egypt was a better place than Canaan. And if we compare these two grand engines of Satanic craft, in idolatry the sentiments (i.e. fear, dread, desire, awe, admiration) are most in exercise, if not solely; in infidelity the passions have but little play. It is human reason, the intellect, though even the intellect is swayed by the heart, which is enmity against God. Infidelity was usually found rather with the educated than with the ignorant; of late years even the lowest classes in the social scale, and the most uncultured, are swelling its ranks. And as education — the present panacea for all moral evil! — spreads, so infidelity increases. For if education expands the mind and strengthens its power, the increase of infidelity is inevitable. For, the mind being enmity to God, its expansion is the expansion of hatred, and the strengthening of its powers to spread its own evil. And the means of education which the wisdom of this world has adopted, and the craft of Satan has caused to be used, as to philosophy taught, is underlaid with scepticism; more subtle in some than in others, but therefore the more dangerous. The books of past ages and professors of the present age are for the most part tainted with infidelity, and some of them very deeply. It is the result of man's mind trying to measure the Revelation of God by the light of reason. Reason was never given to discuss the command of its Creator, never to decide whether obedience was due to God, or whether his Word is credible. Revelation is its own evidence, its own authority. And every one that has read a page of it has more or less, at least once in his life, felt the power and authority of it. Conscience in a measure responds to the truth; but conscience may be silenced, and the general result is that man without conscience falls into the depths of corruption or wanders in the darkness of his own reason, i.e. infidelity. The legitimate sphere of reason is earthly and temporal things. Now that it is darkened, to attempt to subject the Word of God to its authority is the greatest proof of its incapacity for the office. And further we have but to remember that the Word of God is the message of His love to find equal proof of its antagonism to God.