GOD'S GREAT NEWS for MAN'S GREAT PROBLEM - Romans 1-8

The Courtroom Drama ...

I love a good courtroom drama. Many of my favorite stories and movies have stirring courtroom scenes. During our cross-country trip from California, we read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer together as a family. Our whole family loves that book. In that story, there is a terrific courtroom drama. The town drunkard, Muff Potter, has been accused of stabbing young Doc Robinson to death in the town cemetery around twelve midnight. The doctor had commissioned Potter and another man named Injun Joe to help him rob a freshly dug grave. Muff Potter was drunk at the time, and he became convinced that during a fight that broke out he had driven his knife into the young physician and killed him. The court of public opinion had already passed verdict: Potter was guilty, destined for the hangman's noose. As the trial wore on, witnesses were called. One described how Potter had been seen washing himself in the wee hours that morning, apparently a rare occurrence. Another identified the murder weapon as Potter's own knife. Injun Joe coolly described how the fight broke out and how Potter had killed the doctor. And the defense attorney failed to cross examine any of these witnesses. The trial pointed to a swift and sure conviction.

But then the lawyer for the defense calls Thomas Sawyer to take the stand, and Tom describes how he and Huck Finn came to be hiding in that very graveyard on that very night at twelve midnight: they were trying to invoke a superstitious ritual to rid themselves of warts!! Since they were only a few feet from the new grave, they had witnessed the whole fight by the light of the waxing moon: they watched while Injun Joe stabbed the young doctor after Muff Potter was knocked unconscious!! At this revelation, the whole courtroom gasped with shock ... and Injun Joe seized the moment to crash through the courtroom windows and steal away!

Today, as we look at Rom. 1:18-20, we find ourselves in another courtroom drama. Paul skillfully and solemnly ushers us into a courtroom in these verses, and we will not leave the court until the end of chapter three. In that court, we find ourselves facing the bench where God is the Judge, and Paul is His appointed prosecuting attorney. In these opening statements in Rom. 1:18-20, Paul introduces God's case against the human race, calling upon two witnesses to support the charge that man is suppressing the truth he knows about God. Humanity is accused of the ultimate "cover-up." This courtroom scene is the most dramatic you will ever encounter. It is no mere story: it is stark reality from God's perspective, and humanity is the accused. And humanity is more like Injun Joe than Muff Potter: we are guilty as sin, brazenly involved in suppressing the truth. Between Romans 1:18-3:23, Paul will prove with devastating and inescapable logic that all humanity is under sin, guilty to the core, having to rely solely on the mercy of the court.

What a Scene Change!

This represents the first main change in thought in the book thus far. Paul has completed his incisive introduction of God's great news in verses 1-17, and now he sets forth to describe Man's great problem. It is essential to understand the wisdom of God in the ordering of this material. Man cannot develop a full appreciation for the greatness of the gospel until Man has been fully persuaded of his chronic need for that gospel. In other words, before we can come to an understanding of our own salvation and a deep appreciation of our Savior, we must behold our own sin in all its universal ugliness and be forced to admit our complete guilt before God as our Judge. It is only in light of understanding Man's great problem of sin that God's great news of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ becomes great news indeed for each of us who personally have chosen to believe. Thus, with these verses 18-20 we find ourselves standing in court in the place of the accused, and God's charge is being brought against us. The Judge is about to enter the courtroom ... all rise ... as we read His indictment of humanity in Rom. 1:18-20: "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse."

God vs. Man: The Wrath of God and the Unrighteousness of Man - 1:18

Thus far in Romans, we have seen four main subjects relating to God and His great news: 1) in Rom. 1:1, we saw God's great news, 2) In Rom. 1:4, we saw God's Son as the content of that great news, 3) In Rom. 1:16, we saw God's power inherent in the great news, and 4) in Rom. 1:17, we saw God's righteousness revealed in the great news. Now we are introduced to the fifth main subject: God's wrath.

Just speaking about the wrath of God shivers our spines. In the Bible, we see Lot's wife turned to salt against the smoldering backdrop of the fire and brimstone firestorm that consumed Sodom and Gomorrah; we recall the ten loathsome plagues of Egypt; we try to comprehend the earth swallowing up the sons of Korah after their rebellion against Moses; we see God's wrath against Judah when He used Babylon as His instrument to burn Jerusalem to a crisp, and then we see God's wrath against Babylon's king Nebuchadnezzar when he went mad and lived like an animal. And Jesus was crying out in Gethsemane to avoid having to drink the cup of God's wrath on the night before His crucifixion. God's wrath is a fearsome thing.

The first clause in this verse is jarring: "For God's wrath is revealed from heaven." Immediately after hearing this, our mind fills with questions: what is God's wrath? How is it revealed? When is it revealed (now or later)? Let's look at each one of these questions in detail.

First, what is God's wrath? John Stott believes it is "His holy hostility to evil." The Linguistic Key to the Greek NT says it is "the deep-seated anger of God against sin." Combining these ideas, we can define God's wrath this way: "God's wrath is His holy hostility against man's sin."

But there is a very significant aspect to this which is easily missed. Stated simply, where there is great love, there is great anger. God's wrath against sin is certainly based on His holy antipathy to sin and evil. It is also based on His righteousness when he observes Man's unrighteousness by contrast. But it is also deeply rooted in His great love for man. If God did not love man, His wrath towards man under sin would not exist. He would simply squash the entire world between his thumb and forefinger and continue His eternal song. But, because His love runs so deep, His wrath runs deep as well when He sees men and women willfully destroying their lives because they ignore their knowledge of Him, telling Him by thought and action: "I don't need You." God's wrath is very real. It is a deep-seated part of His character, rooted both in His holy hostility toward sin and in His love for sinners.

I glimpse this wrath of God-love of God interplay in my fathering. What if Blythe and I were to wake-up tomorrow morning to the sound of a squabble in the next room. The sound crescendoes until a slap is heard, followed by the sound of crying. I throw off the covers and run to the room to investigate. There in the room are two girls looking sheepishly at me, with the third crying in the corner. Tightening my jaw, I ask the two, "Who slapped her?" Both girls reply at the same time, "She did," each pointing at the other. Now Dad has a quandary on his hands. Several tense and quiet moments pass. Suddenly a fourth daughter enters the room. I quickly ask her, "Who slapped her?" And the fourth daughter points to one of the two sisters and says, "She did." You can tell by the guilty look in her eyes that the truth is now revealed. You look into her face, you gaze into her eyes, you watch her lower lip quiver ever so slightly at the certainty of impending punishment. As you look into that guilty little face, you are filled with memories: of the first moment you saw that face, of the time you looked into that face and told her the shot at the doctor's office would hurt but that you would hold her through it. You love that sweet face. You love that little girl. Yet because of your love you have to address what she has done. You might say, "Excuse me, slapping your sister is unacceptable in this family, and a lie is a very serious thing. There are consequences to this. Here they are ..." and you describe what will happen. Now, if I didn't love that little face, if I didn't love my girl, I would have just said, "forget about it ... all little kids lie." I think God's wrath-God's love is similar to this, but on a far more profound level. The wrath of God is deeply rooted, both in hatred of sin and in longstanding love for the sinner, whose actions cannot and must not go unchecked.

Thus, we might venture a new definition of the wrath of God: "God's wrath is His holy hostility to man's sin, which burns greatly because He loves people greatly."

But how is God's wrath revealed? If we look at verses 24, 26 and 28, we see in specific terms from this passage how God's wrath is revealed. It is revealed when God "gives them over" to the sin which inhabits them, thereby letting them fully taste the deathful consequences of sin. Again, God's love is seen in this, in that He allows consequences as a reminder of the iron law of sin and death, that man might be shocked back into the truth about Him, and come to Him to be saved. Lloyd-Jones says something similar in The Plight of Man and the Power of God: "Their forgetfulness of God and their departure from Him always leads to trouble. God punishes their transgressions, sometimes actively, sometimes passively, by allowing them to follow their own course and to reap the consequences of such a policy." (pg. 69). Thus, God's wrath is revealed in the consequences of the sin. Consequences may rain down harshly and instantly like with Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5. Or the consequences may surface slowly as the sinner thinks he has not been caught, while sin still festers and destroys, as it did with David and Bathsheba.

And I thank God for these consequences. A culture without consequences is on a short route to chaos. Without consequences, there is no chance for the prodigal to "come to himself." Without consequences, there is no opportunity to consider right and wrong, to face one's need for a forgiving God. This is the chief reason why I oppose abortion so passionately: it removes from us the consequences of irresponsible sexual behavior. And when a society works so hard to remove consequences for sin, it is just pushing open the door for anarchy and mayhem to rush in like a flood. We need God's wrath, revealed in the consequences of our sin, to yank us back from the edge of the abyss.

Now for our next question about vs. 18: when is God's wrath revealed? Most of us think of the wrath of God coming at the end of the world, on the day of judgment. That is true, but that is not what this verse tells us. The verb used in this first phrase, "is revealed," is in the PRESENT tense. This is not, therefore, a reference to the end times. Paul is talking about God's wrath in the present, as it is currently revealed at the time of Paul's writing and our reading. This is the wrath of God practically working even at this moment in the lives of men and women the world over, "giving them over" to the consequences of their own sin. This is why this courtroom scene is being telecast LIVE for us in the present as we read Romans!

Now the next thing the text says is that, "God's wrath is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and all unrighteousness of men." What a weighty statement!! We see in this verse that God's wrath is revealed against something. It is purposeful, thoughtful wrath that stands in antipathy to something within man. It is not the capricious wrath of the pagan Roman gods, like the wrath of Zeus exhibited at the founding of Rome according to the Roman poet Virgil. No, God's wrath is justifiable wrath, pointed thoughtfully and carefully at the root of the problem: man's sin, as we will see in the next few phrases.

God's wrath is not unfair or selective wrath. It is wrath revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. Paul leaves no room here for Pharisaic legal gyrations to determine what is sin and what is not. God's wrath is revealed from heaven against ALL ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, in whatever form that takes. Paul is going to describe three archetypal forms in his grand indictment of man here in Rom. 1-3: idolatry, judgmentalism, and self-righteousness. But in whatever specific form it may come, God's wrath is revealed universally against man's ungodliness and unrighteousness.

There is something wonderful hidden in this grim news. Notice that God's wrath is not revealed "against men," but against "all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men." This is a crucial distinction! Not against men, but against something in all people that spoils and sickens us. This leads us to ask two questions: 1) What is man's ungodliness? and 2) What is man's unrighteousness?

First, what is man's ungodliness? Man's "ungodliness" is man's basic anti-God sentiment arising from his sin residing inside him. Sin at its rotten core says to God, "I Don't Need You!" That bold and irreverent statement is certainly anti-God and thus is "ungodliness." This sin is seen most clearly in man's gross irreverence for God. Thus, what God is telling us through Paul here is that God's wrath is revealed against man's sinful irreverence of Him, when rebellious man looks toward God and says "I Don't Need You."

But what does this practically mean today? If we are Christians trying to share our faith and convince someone of their sin, what can we tell them about this ungodliness? This sin erupts in two attitudes, both revolving around the self. The first attitude is SELF-SUFFICIENCY: we feel we don't need God because we think we can handle it. This is a defining characteristic of traditional American culture, based on the rugged individualism of the pioneers. I find myself exhibiting this attitude far too often: when my schedule is set for the day, it looks like things are pretty well under control, and I find myself no longer checking in with my Father. I erroneously act like I don't need Him. Or, maybe I might find myself doing a task or tackling a problem in an area where I feel very much at home, so I jump right in without checking in with my Father. Somehow, I quietly decide within myself that I don't think I need Him for this one. Now, I don't actively say to myself, "Ha-ha, now I don't need God," but my independent actions say it loud and clear. And whenever we do this, it is just plain sin. Jesus never did this: He made a point of saying "I do nothing of my own initiative ..." in John 8:28. Somehow we think we can do most things on our own initiative. Somehow we think we're better than Jesus!?!. Our supposed self-sufficiency is a clever trap we fall into time and again.

The second attitude is SELF-CENTEREDNESS, wherein we look at life purely in terms of "me." With God out of the picture, only the "self" is left. So, I devote all my effort to try to meet my own needs. This is when we begin looking for human relationships to meet our needs. We quickly become takers rather than givers. I have always thought the "personals" ads in our newspapers are a tragic illustration of this: in nearly each one, the person is focused on outlining the characteristics they are seeking in some stranger, hoping that stranger will finally meet their needs. It is such a heartbreak. And in our society today, it seems our whole emphasis is to "find your self." We are so deeply self-centered that I believe we cannot even see the degree to which our insatiable self dominates our lives and choices. And when self is center-stage, God is pushed into the off-stage shadows. Any of us living a self-centered lifestyle don't really consider God as being able to meet any immediate or real needs, so God is disregarded: "I don't need God because He can't meet the needs I have right now. I'll look elsewhere." That is the voice of self-centeredness, the voice of sin hissing inside us.

This sin comes home to roost for us in this way: our self-sufficiency and self-centeredness make us inept at developing healthy relationships at any level. We become profoundly lonely. We find our lives incredibly empty. We can be married, but we can still be "together ... all alone." We can be in a family unit where each person goes his or her own way, and we can feel lonely in being left behind. A dear Irish woman we knew when we lived south of Dublin was surrounded with a husband, children and a large extended family. Her best friend lived fifty yards away. Yet virtually every night she would get up around 2:00 AM, go downstairs, make herself a cup of tea, and sit and cry over her gnawing loneliness. Her family's sin, her husband's sin, and her own sin had placed her in isolation. Sin, a.k.a. self-sufficiency and self-centeredness, carries us quickly into the desert of loneliness ... where we do not want to be.

We need to study this and let these raw truths pierce our hearts anew because we who know the fellowship of our indwelling Christ have forgotten what it is like to have a life entirely dominated by sin and the self, a Christ-less existence. We need to listen to Paul's indictment against humanity, because this humanity is us the way we once were; it is our neighbors the way some of them are now; this is the person working down the street at Bi-Lo; it may be some of your family members; it may be your best friend; it even still might be you. We need to know very clearly what sin is, and the loneliness it produces, so that we can help others to see the horrible effects of sin in their own lives, in the shallow relationships (or total lack of relationships), in the tragic loneliness, in the echoing emptiness of a life lived apart from Jesus Christ.

Let's recap: man's ungodliness is simply man's sin. Man's sin is when we say to God, "I Don't Need You." We reach that erroneous conclusion either through deluded feelings of self-sufficiency or self-centeredness that doesn't consider God powerful enough to meet my needs as I define them.

But what about Man's unrighteousness? "Man's unrighteousness" is formulated in this verse to stand in utter contrast to "God's righteousness" revealed in the great news through faith in Jesus Christ in Rom. 1:17. This represents man's violation of righteousness, man's sin in the form of falling short of God's standards set up for Him. This is why Paul recaps man's sin in terms of "all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God" in Rom. 3:23, because man was created by God to carry God's righteous character before the world in ruling over the world. However, man's choice of sin alienated him from God and subjected him to indwelling sin, which from that time forward defined man's character as UNrighteousness. In Jesus Christ this was reversed, and man did become the glory of God in full, in human flesh, by His righteous character.

So, what is Paul the prosecuting attorney's opening statement in vs. 18? GOD'S WRATH is revealed against MAN'S SIN. First, in man's anti-God "I Don't Need You" sentiment, then in man's utter falling short of the righteous character God originally intended for him.

Having made this assertion about the faulty and sinful character of man, Paul now presents God's formal charge against humanity. This is the next step in the court proceedings. But before we go to that, let's stop for a moment. All too often in our Christian world, not to mention the non-Christian world, the topic of man's sin is swept under the rug. It is uncomfortable to talk about, as is any mention of the wrath of God. These terms seem somehow antiquated in the hip 90s, somehow out of date for the Baby Boomers or those in Generation X. But if the Boomer or the Xer ever wants to meet God on God's terms, he has to be broken by the stark and unavoidable reality of his own sin, and seek God's way of salvation from God's wrath revealed against his sin.

God's Charge Against Man: Suppressing the Truth - 1:18

Here is God's charge: all people across time, in all cultures and in every race are "suppressing the truth in unrighteousness." This is the ultimate cover-up. This makes Watergate look like a child's prank. It makes Whitewater allegations look tiny by comparison. Over and against any political scandal is the ultimate and darkest worldwide cover-up. We are all suppressing the truth we know through our unrighteousness. Again this causes all sorts of questions to flood our minds: What is the truth he is talking about, and How are we suppressing it?

First, what is the truth he is talking about? The truth here is specifically truth about God: that He is, that He is the Creator who designed incredible order and beauty into the universe, that He is the rewarder of those who seek Him, that He is good and loving as well as holy and hostile to evil. That is the truth we suppress in general terms. In specific terms, it is the living Truth named Jesus Christ. Jesus made the bold claim in John 14:6 that He is the way, the truth and the life. Thus, the term "truth" here refers to "truth about God in the person and work of Jesus Christ." This is what is being suppressed at all times, and it is against just this truth that Satan has arrayed "the lie."

But how are we suppressing this truth? That question is answered very clearly in the next two verses. We suppress the truth by refusing to listen to our conscience, so that eventually its voice falls silent within us. We also suppress this truth by replacing the truth about creation bearing witness to God with the theory that creation is a mechanistic evolutionary system devoid of God's influence. This willful submersion of the truth in the murky waters of "post-modern" thinking is what has invoked the wrath of God in our day, as we will see in vs. 19, 20.

God's Internal Witness to Man: Man's Conscience - 1:19

The first word in Rom. 1:19 is "because." This is where Paul lodges the evidence in support of God's charge that humanity is suppressing the truth. Paul first tells us, "because that which is known about God is evident." What can be known about God is evident, not enshrouded in mystery as we so often think. God has not veiled Himself from us: He whispers to us all the time. The question is: are we listening?

What Paul is saying is this: "they are suppressing the truth in unrighteousness because that which is known about God is evident." Obviously, this is a claim which will need substantiation. We modern skeptics might throw up our hands in Paul's face and say, "That which is known about God is evident? WHERE is it evident?"

And Paul would immediately retort: "IN THEM!" Now the sage Biblical commentators over time have differed as to whether this means "in them," "among them," or "to them." Since by far the most common usage of this most often used preposition in the NT is simply "in," I chose to translate this phrase "in them," meaning that what has been known about God is evident "in them," i.e. IN THEIR CONSCIENCE. Paul expands on this theme in specific detail in Rom. 2:15, 16. Also, since in one sense the human conscience is God's internal tutor about right and wrong and about "something" beyond themselves and greater than themselves, it seems natural to refer to the conscience here. The context and logic of the passage demands such an interpretation.

But how does this practically work out? How do we suppress the truth in us in our conscience? The emphasis in this verse is that humanity suppresses the truth by squelching God's specific and personal tutoring of them in the quiet of their own hearts. Since Paul is clearly describing unregenerate man here, he must be referring to the quiet inner witness of God through the universal human conscience. The tragedy here is that the voice of conscience, which is so loud in the hearts of children, becomes quieter and quieter over time as we grow in arrogance and no longer heed its wisdom. Eventually, after years of ignoring our conscience, its still small voice dies out altogether.

My children and I love to watch the classic Pinocchio story together. In that story, there is young, innocent Pinocchio entering a wicked world full of temptation. Jiminy Cricket is Pinocchio's official, certified conscience. But, when Pinocchio listens to the lies of Honest John the fox and blows off school for a high-flying career with the theatre, Jiminy Cricket decides to leave Pinocchio. Pinocchio had long since quit listening to Jiminy, and Jiminy eventually quit talking. In a way, the same thing happens when we suppress the truth whispered by our conscience today. Most everyone today grows up in a fast-paced, temptation-rich environment. The voice of the conscience gets quickly drowned out by the sounds of the TV, by all our choices to grow up too quickly, and by the time we reach the late teen years it seems like we have no more moorings on what is really right and wrong. In fact, if we spoke about conscience among most students and professors in the university setting today, we would be laughed at. This would happen not because we would be wrong, only because their own consciences have been seared into silence for so long that they can no longer even conceive the possibility of a human conscience. But it definitely exists, and God intends to hold us accountable for squelching its voice.

Two of the sharpest observers of unregenerate human nature happen to affirm the reality and power of the human conscience. First of all, Winston Churchill, in a tribute to Neville Chamberlain on Nov. 12, 1940, said, "The only guide to a man is his conscience." More eloquently, Shakespeare mentions the conscience time and time again in The Life and Death of King Richard III, including Richard's climactic soliloquy, when Richard admits: "My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, and every tongue brings in a several tale, and every tale condemns me for a villain." Would that modern man could be brought to such an admission.

But in that play Shakespeare caught the deep reason why we quit listening to our conscience and why we try so vehemently to deny its reality. We like to squelch our conscience precisely because it makes us uncomfortable, because it reminds us of the truth of an ever-watching God, with absolute rights and wrongs. But the conscience definitely exists, and God intends to hold us accountable for squelching its voice.

The final emphasis God is making here at the end of verse 19, "for God made it evident to them," is that this suppression of that still, small voice of conscience in them is a direct rejection of God Himself. It is our gagging of God. He has placed our conscience within us as an ever-present reminder of Him and His ways. When we deny that inner voice, we directly deny Him. Thus, it is more than our human conscience we are stuffing down: it is a profound personal rejection of God Himself. It is just this willful rejection that has invoked the wrath of God.

If any of us are not sure we are Christians today, it is a good time to ask yourself: am I hearing from God through my conscience? All of us need to consider afresh the still quiet voice of God within our heart, either through our conscience if we have not yet chosen to believe in Jesus Christ or through the deeper voice of the Holy Spirit living in us if we have chosen to believe in Jesus Christ. The Spirit within us echoes the truths of the Scripture to us, thereby guiding us.

So, God's first witness to man is the internal witness of man's conscience. Paul has called upon each person's conscience as an internal witness of the truth we know deep within about God. This hard evidence, personal and real within each of us, is impossible to refute because if we deny our conscience, we demonstrate in that moment exactly what Paul is saying we do!! His logic is irrefutable. His conclusions about humanity are unavoidable. Things look bad for humanity at this point ... but they are about to look even worse in the next verse.

God's External Witness to Man: God's Creation - 1:20

Paul now dismisses the conscience as his first witness, his internal witness, and he calls his second witness. God's second witness in His case against the human race is the external witness of the creation. This evidence is entered in Rom. 1:20. The first phrase of verse 20 is also shocking to our post-modern minds: "For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes have been clearly seen..." Wow! Now that is a statement demanding substantiation in a world given over to the modern creation myth known as evolution.

Let's begin by considering how "His invisible attributes have been clearly seen." This seems particularly vague at first, except that Paul defines these "invisible attributes" to be specifically "His everlasting power and divinity" later on in the verse. These "invisible attributes" refer to the totality of God's perfect character, which is invisible because God is spirit. However, God has taken these invisible attributes and made each one visible for us through different aspects of the creation. Certainly there is wonder beyond imagination in contemplating this!

First consider how God's "power" can be seen in creation. If we simply turn to the first page of our Bibles, we see the redeeming power of His word in the creation. His word alone starts with the chaos, emptiness and darkness of Gen. 1:2 and systematically transforms it into a highly ordered world full of light and life. The power of God's word to redeem darkness, chaos and emptiness into light, order and life is seen in the whole of creation.

But we know the power of God in Rom. 1:16 is resurrection power, and resurrection power can be seen all over creation. At the tiniest level, every seed ever sown by a farmer, every nut or acorn falling to the ground, dies first as it falls and is buried in the ground or under the leaves. For a time all is silent. Then, through the miracle of resurrection, from that very thing that died arises new life. This happens on virtually every square foot of exposed dirt the whole world over, with the exception of the deathlike deserts. But even in the barren deserts, how much more does the single, scraggy plant holding stubbornly to life speak of life out of death!

And every calendar year, on the global level, spring supercedes the silent death of snowy winter, as new life buds on formerly icy branches, as flowers push through formerly frozen ground, as new little birds tap slowly through their egg-like tombs to a world teeming with new life. And every time the sun rises, the drama of the resurrection is re-enacted as it was on Easter Sunday long ago: the sun rises, forcing the retreat of darkness and coldness in a crescendo of light, warmth and life. God's power is seen every day, on virtually every square foot of exposed ground, in one way or another, the world over. Creation fairly trumpets our God of resurrection; but many of us have our headphones on, listening to metallic music drumming dullness into our brains.

We love spring, we delight in watching new life burst forth, we revel in "spring fever" in April and May, but do we let it bear witness to us that our God is the God who brings life from death?

But what about God's "divinity"? First, Paul describes it as His "eternal divinity." The term for divinity is His divine nature, a summary term for the attributes which constitute deity. How might we see this in nature? Consider the limitlessness of the stars and their countless galaxies. We can see forever and beyond on every clear night -- a fascinating picture of the eternality of our God. That is the depth of God in His eternal nature. Who has not gazed up at the stars and felt the thrill of their vastness, and the threat of our smallness by comparison? Whose breath has not been stolen for a moment to think of a God large enough to order such a limitless universe? Consider His breadth: the almost endless variety of plant life, marine life, animal life, bird life, insect life, microscopic life, and human life on this planet speak eloquently about the breadth of His character. And yet, with all this enormous variety, there is perfect order in the biosphere and its closely interdependent biosystems that remain untouched by man's obtrusive hand. Furthermore, since the source of all life is light itself, God gives us the Sun and organizes our lives around it, not only in terms of the revolution of our planet but in terms of our schedule of daytime activities and nighttime sleep. It is no mistake that Jesus as God is thus put forward in John 1 as "the light of the world." He is indeed the light, and our lives are now to revolve around Him as certainly as the earth revolves around the Sun and our schedule around the daytime. We could go on forever since creation gives us endless physical pictures of our unseen God!!

In fact, just a few weeks ago one of our Sunday School classes caught some wonderful glimpses of God's character in His creation. They studied Rom. 1:18-20 for a few minutes together, then they went outside to observe nature and learn what God would teach them about His invisible character qualities. One of the young girls was taken with the birds, and how God gently and lovingly awakens the world through the morning birdsong. If you have ever noticed, one of the first quiet sounds signalling the wake-up call for the world is a single, cheerful chirp of a bird in the forest. This accompanies the first brushstroke of sunlight on the tips of the trees. As the light penetrates slowly and warmly, the first bird is joined in happy song by a few of her comrades. With the warming of the world, the birdsong swells with happier and more variable notes. The chorus of the birds awakens the world gently and happily. Now, when we are waking up, consider how loving it would be if your mother sang softly to herself as the light begins to break the darkness, then comes up to gently and warmly rub your back and shoulders as her melody continues. You turn over with a sense of joy, having been awakened with love and song. And God lovingly and cheerfully awakens the world in such a way each day! I was delighted when Blythe told me about their findings!! It brought back memories of my grandmother down in Texas, speaking in reverential terms about "her birds" in the tree outside her window, waking her up each morning!!

Often the best observers of creation in our world today are the poets. I usually don't like to quote poetry too much, because it sounds so lofty, but there is a wealth of poetry that harmonizes the truth of Rom. 1:20 about God's character witnessed in creation. Here is an excerpt of Walt Whitman's poem entitled Song of Myself, written like a personal creed on the power of creation to convince Man that there is a God:

"I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey work of the stars,
And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren,
And the tree-toad is a chef-d'oeuvre for the highest,
And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven,
And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery,
And the cow crunching with depress'd head surpasses any statue,
And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels." Song of Myself

Here is an insightful verse from one of the most inspiring poets I have ever read, Elizabeth Barrett Browning:

"Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries,
And daub their natural faces unaware
More and more from the first similitude." Aurora Leigh

Of course, I don't know whether either of these poets were Christians according to a Biblical definition. If they were Christians, these verses celebrate the God they saw in creation. If they were not Christians, these writings demonstrate their own cover-up of the truth they had observed in creation, without allowing that truth to lead them to know personally the God of creation.

Finally, the argument from design, the natural order of things, was the first argument the NT preachers put forward to the Gentiles to compel them to consider the gospel. It was then and is now a very weighty argument. Paul spoke movingly about God as Creator of all things in his sermon on Mars Hill in Athens in Acts 17.

Even in our "sophisticated" modern culture, the argument for the existence of God from the design and order of creation has never been sufficiently refuted. Instead, in classic Satanic form, the truth of creation has been replaced by the lie of evolution, with much intellectual bullying going on in the process. Listen to this disdainful quote from Richard Dawkins, the Oxford zoologist who is one of the most influential evolutionists of our day, concerning those who do not believe in evolution: "It is absolutely safe to say that, if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that)." What an arrogant and bullying statement.

Fortunately, God has raised up a wonderful man from within the hallowed halls of the world's elite universities to begin the process of questioning the dogmatic philosophical framework undergirding the supposedly scientific theory of evolution. This man's name is Phillip Johnson, and he is a tenured Law Professor at the University of California at Berkeley's Boalt Hall. Johnson graduated from Harvard and the University of Chicago Law School, he clerked under Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren, and his academic expertise is in assessing the validity of arguments. He wrote a ground-breaking book in 1991 entitled Darwin on Trial, where he very logically and dispassionately demolishes the circular reasoning, the misleading use of very limited evidence, and the intellectual bullying put forward by the philosophical naturalists who propagate evolutionary theory as dogmatic fact within all strata of our society.

Probably the most revealing thing about that superlative book was Johnson's contention that even many of the greatest scientists in America know that evolution is a theory without much substance. Listen to this quote from Darwin on Trial, pg. 9, 10, about a "... remarkable lecture given by Colin Patterson at the American Museum of Natural History in 1981. Patterson is a senior paleontologist at the British Natural History Museum and the author of that museum's general text on evolution. His lecture compared creationism (not creation-science) with evolution, and characterized both as scientifically vacuous concepts which are held primarily on the basis of faith. Many of the specific points in the lecture are technical, but two are of particular importance ... First, Patterson asked his audience of experts a question which reflected his own doubts about much of what has been thought to be secure knowledge about evolution:
'Can you tell me anything you know about evolution, any one thing ...
that is true? I tried that question on the geology staff at the Field
Museum of Natural History and the only answer I got was silence.
I tried it on the members of the Evolutionary Morphology seminar
in the University of Chicago, a very prestigious body of evolutionists,
and all I got there was silence for a long time and eventually one person
said, "I do know one thing -- it ought not to be taught in high school."'"

What stirring evidence of the very cover-up of truth Paul speaks of in Rom. 1:18-20, happening within the hallowed halls of science in our culture today!! This cover-up has continued unchecked for the last fifteen years, from 1981 to the present! Having abandoned any concept of God as Creator, because we have the morally handy if intellectually untenable theory of evolution to grab onto, we quickly turn into a shameful pack of liars! And it is all done in the name of good science.

Paul had it right in Rom. 1:18-20: incontrovertibly right. At the end of verse 20, Paul delivers his stunning conclusion to these opening arguments in God's case against the human race: "they are without excuse." From God's perspective, this is the result of what Paul has been presenting. As a result of the invisible things about God being understood by things made that are clearly seen, the result is that God holds man morally culpable, "without excuse;" literally "without legal defense."

Finally, we hear this summary statement from Paul's opening argument: "so that they are without excuse." And our first reaction is ISN'T THAT A LITTLE UNFAIR? But I remember the week I translated and studied this passage in depth. That very week I became utterly convinced that God's wrath is wholly justified. All people across time and race and culture have had countless DAILY reminders of God, both internally through the conscience and externally through the creation. God didn't stop listening to our internal conscience ... we did. God didn't disregard creation and buy into the theory of evolution ... we did. Let's stop blaming God for being unfair and step forward to admit our own sin. His wrath is beyond reproach because we have denied our conscience and disregarded creation.

Conclusion: Before the Bar of God's Justice ... Alone, or with an Advocate?

This text jars us. We all stand before the bench of God's judgment without excuse, without legal recourse. Maybe some of us in this room stand alone before God, without excuse. For many of us, we no longer stand there alone. We have a perfect legal Advocate defending us before God. That Advocate's name is Jesus Christ, who defends us not on the basis of our innocence, because we are utterly guilty. He defends us on the basis of His innocence, and on the fact that He has already paid in full the fine for all of our sin with His own life on the cross. His is an argument the Judge is always persuaded by, because it is based on His unavoidable righteousness and personal payment of love that covers even the dirtiest of our sin. But, in this real, live courtroom, this Advocate comes to us only as we ask Him to come and defend us. If any of you are feeling awfully alone before God and His just judgment on your life right now, please admit your guilt and ask Jesus Christ to be your Advocate and take you under His wing. Then you will find this courtroom scene much less scary, because you are no longer alone, your terrible fine has been paid up in full, and He will come and live in you in the person of the Holy Spirit. Then you may leave the courtroom having been set free to live a new life unto God!

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