In our portion of Scripture today the Apostle Paul concludes we are without excuse when we refuse to acknowledge and glorify the living God. His argument is that, even if we had never heard of God, we should naturally come to the realization that He exists simply by viewing the creation. Paul feels that man's denial of God and man's refusal to worship God has led him into many hurtful practices which fall outside of God's will for the human race.
"The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known of God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities---His eternal power and divine nature---have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse." (Romans 1:18-20) We can't see the Creator, but we can learn things about Him through the creation. We can logically conclude that the God who made all things possesses unimaginable and unlimited power. We are able to conclude that a God who made this world so lovely enjoys beautiful things. We can know that the God who created the wonderful animal kingdom enjoys living creatures. We can also be certain that the God who created mankind in His image did it because He desires a relationship with beings who are intelligent enough to communicate with Him and to form a relationship with Him.
Paul is saying, in essence, "Even if you had never been taught that there is a God in heaven, you have no excuse for denying His existence. All you have to do is look on the creation in all its beauty and glory. The creation itself testifies to the existence of a Creator. The creation itself declares that the Creator is holy, for an unholy God could not have formed objects of such stunning beauty. An unrighteous God could not have made beings like you and me who have hearts that are able to feel love."
The letter to the Romans is written to Gentiles who acknowledge that life didn't occur spontaneously on its own, but they believe in a pantheon of gods who all had a hand in various parts of the creation. They have been willing to admit that the universe didn't spring out of nothing, and that the earth's atmosphere is perfectly designed to support life, and that men and women possess an eternal soul, but they have failed to credit the one true God with all of these things. Somewhere way back in the mists of time these people strayed from the knowledge of the one true God. Adam knew the one true God. Eve knew the one true God. Their son Abel knew the one true God. But as the earth began being populated with more and more human beings, many of these human beings forsook the God who made them in His image. They began to worship gods they created in their own image. They refused to bow their knees to a God who demands holiness and instead bowed their knees to gods whose natures are much like their own. False gods don't demand holiness. They demand sacrifices and offerings and rituals, but they don't expect man to be anything more than he already is. They don't ask him to rise to a higher level. They don't challenge him to be all that he was created to be.
The pagan world believed their gods had the same personalities as human beings. They had the same faults while at the same time possessing supernatural powers. If these false gods could speak, their followers believed they would say something like this: "You're basically okay. You sometimes experience rage and jealousy and greed and lust, but so do we! Some of you have fought with and even killed your fellow man; we too have killed our rivals from time to time. Some of you have taken another man's wife as his own; we too have fathered children by women who don't belong to us. Some of you indulge in riotous living; which of us hasn't enjoyed a little of that? All you have to do is bring offerings to us that we are pleased with, and all is good! You can go right back out and keep on keeping on with whatever makes you happy."
Paul sees straight to the heart of the matter. Men and women have created gods for themselves because their pride and their lust and their dishonesty keeps them from submitting to a holy God who expects them to live by standards befitting beings who are created in His image. God gave us intelligent minds capable of understanding right from wrong. He gave us souls that long for communion with Him. He doesn't want the crowning glory of creation wallowing in sin as if we are senseless. We were created for so much better than this!
God didn't need to create us and He doesn't need our worship. He created us because He wanted to give us His love and to have fellowship with us and to take care of us. These are the same reasons that compel a husband and wife to decide to make a child together. God created us in order to give to us, but when we refuse to acknowledge His holiness and when we decide we aren't going to submit to His laws, we are like a rebellious child who decides he is going to touch the hot stove even though his mom and dad have told him not to touch it. We are only hurting ourselves when we decide to go our own way. We can never be who we were created to be if we persist in living in rebellion to our Creator.
Paul says man has turned himself into a fool---the complete opposite of what he was intended to be---by rebelling against God. "For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles." (Romans 1:21-23)
God intended for man to be the best he could be, and to enjoy the very best a loving Father has to offer, but man was content with remaining on the bottom step. God called to him, "Come up higher! Get closer to me! Enjoy the things I have in store for My children!" But man said, "No thanks. I'm happy right where I am. I'm living barely one step above creatures that are able to perform only the most basic tasks of reasoning, and I'm okay with that. Staying where I am allows me to be who I want to be. Staying where I am lets me do what I want to do. In fact, because You ask more of me than I want to give, I'm going to create gods for myself who expect a whole lot less. I'm going to make gods who look just like me, or gods that look like birds or snakes or fish. They think I'm okay just the way I am. They don't want to make anything glorious out of me. They don't want to have a relationship with me. All they ask is that, if I happen to offend them in some way, I bring an offering nice enough to make things good between us. My gods don't expect much of me, and when I mess up it's easy to make things right again. But You say I have to live by faith, and I know that faith is going to make me want to be obedient to You, and I'm not interested in that."
I've been writing this morning's blog post from my front porch. My God created the sun I watched come up over the mountain, and the birds that are singing, and the squirrel looking for nuts on my front lawn, and the little dog sitting at my feet, and the neighbor who just came outside to get his morning paper. Did this universe with all its diversity of life come into being without a Creator? My conclusion is that it did not. This was Paul's conclusion. This was King David's conclusion. This should be the conclusion of every human being on the face of the earth. There is a God. There is a God who is so much higher than us we can't even comprehend it, and yet He wants to know us and be known of us. That, my friends, is too good of a deal to pass up. And if we do pass it up, we are without excuse.
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