Gave Them Up

Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. (Romans 1:24-27)

Previously, we saw that people knew the truth of God, but decided to dream up their own gods. Instead of glorifying God and thanking the creator, they decided to worship the creature instead. Humanity chose this of their own volition. In these verses, God “gave them up.” (Later we will see how he “gave them over.”)

Though people initially chose to dishonor God by worshipping the creation, here we see something different: God gave them up to do what they want to do. He gave them up to their desires. They wanted mortal creatures to be their gods? God gave them up to it. They wanted to follow their own lusts and desires? Fine, they can have it their way. If people do not tell God, “Thy will be done,” God tells each of us, “Thy will be done!”

Dishonour Their Own Bodies

The first “giving up” is to sexual immorality, as we see in Romans 1:24. They continued to create gods in their own image in the process in Romans 1:25. The ancient Near East with its fertility cults is testament to this. Today, we see some worship the earth through extreme environmentalism and worship of animals. Animals are often see as important as (or even more then) people. While humanity was ordained caretakers of the earth, they were never to worship it in place of God.

Vile Affections

The second “giving up” is to vile affections, which is homosexuality. In Romans 1:26, we see the only reference to lesbianism in the whole Bible. Romans 1:27, we see that men also committed homosexual acts, and “recompence of their error which was meet” tells us that this type of act is more prone to sexually transmitted disease. Today, our own society has bowed to this behavior, where people can marry the same gender or even pretend they are a different gender than they are. This is a sign that our society has been “given up” in the same way as described here, and the only thing left if for us to be “given over,” which is what we will discuss in the next section.

Before we hastily write this off as talking about somebody else somewhere, we must see that this is the path of every person and every society, including us. Paul is laying a foundation for the need for Christ. He is talking about us. Our wickedness leads to this progressive alienation from God. We may have been born separated from God... but it only goes downhill from there.

We can already see a need to shout out to God, “Have mercy on us, please!” Thank God, He has provided us a way out of this in Jesus Christ. Praise God, “who is blessed for ever. Amen.”