Commentaries:
What an indictment! Additionally, the moral slippage resulting from misconceptions about God affects dress: immodesty becomes common; language: speech becomes filthy and coarse; the arts: entertainment becomes base; family life: the home becomes divided—and the entire culture degenerates.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Seeking God (Part One): Our Biggest Problem
What an individual does—good or evil—affects the lives of others as well. Whether committed by man, woman, boy, or girl, there is no such thing as a victimless crime or a private sin. Sins of commission and omission affect the doer, his family, friends, and society.
Robert Bork ("The Necessary Amendment," First Things, August/September 2004, p. 16) drives this point home in his comments about the effort to legalize homosexual marriage. Bork cites three reasons why "the consequences of homosexual marriage will affect you, your children, and your grandchildren, as well as the morality and health of the society in which you and they live."
First, sanctioning gay marriage will endorse heterosexual promiscuity. By its very nature, legitimatizing homosexual marriage demeans "traditional marriage, [which] comes to be perceived as just one more sexual arrangement among others." Studies of the consequences of same-sex marriage in Scandinavia and the Netherlands hint that nontraditional marriage arrangements break "the symbolic link between marriage, procreation, and family." When that happens, there follows
a rapid and persistent decline in heterosexual marriages. Families are begun by cohabiting couples, who break up significantly more often than married couples, leaving children in one-parent families. The evidence has long been clear that children raised in such families are much more likely to engage in crime, use drugs, and form unstable relationships. These are pathologies that affect everyone in a community.
Second, sanctioning gay marriage will result in an increase in the number of practicing homosexuals. To legitimize homosexual marriage goes a long way to equating heterosexuality with homosexuality. What were once elemental differences become blurred in peoples' minds. "By removing the last vestiges of moral stigma from same-sex couplings, such marriages will lead to an increase in the number of homosexuals." Bork continues by pointing out that young people, "as yet uncertain of and confused by their sexuality" may find it easier to develop a homosexual orientation. This in turn will lead to an increase in the "homosexual syndrome," a collection of physical and psychological symptoms homosexuals are far more prone to display than heterosexuals. HIV/AIDS is just one set of these symptoms. Attempted suicide rates, commonly 300% higher in homosexuals than in heterosexuals, manifest another symptom (see "How Normal is Deviance?" CGG Weekly, October 22, 2004).
The word gay, attached to homosexuals, is a real misnomer, for homosexuals' lives are not at all gay. The homosexual syndrome manifests itself even in the most "gay-friendly" cultures. This fact exposes how absurd is the argument that psychological disorders in gays are the result of "social disapproval." Bork points out that no research exists to corroborate the notion that society's disapproval of homosexuals' lifestyles results in their increased incidence of psychological disorders. The homosexual syndrome, then, is directly related to sexual perversion itself and is not the product of a guilt-trip forced on sodomites by a supposedly intolerant culture.
Third, sanctioning same-sex marriage opens the floodgate to even more outlandish behavior. Bork quotes William Bennett, who points out that homosexual rights activists, having won the battle for same-sex unions, will have no reasons to criticize
the marriage of two consenting brothers. Nor can they . . . explain why we ought to deny a marriage license to three men who want to marry. Or to a man who wants a consensual polygamous arrangement. Or to a father to his adult daughter.
In arguing this way, Bork is saying that legitimizing same-sex marriages crosses a line. Once crossed, no other moral barrier will hold against the onslaught of even the most bizarre proposals. How bizarre can bizarre become? Well, how bizarre is the proposal to legitimize pedophilia? After all, if a teenage girl no longer needs to receive parental permission to obtain an abortion, how far are we from legally approving intercourse between an adult and a consenting teenage boy? This is one of the most disturbing aspects of the floodgate principle. Mary Eberstadt shows that "the taboo against pedophilia is weakening."
Are those enough consequences of legitimizing same-sex marriages? Just three, but each one is horrid beyond words. In the name of "choice," America is destroying her young people. It is only a matter of time before even the most unspeakable deviant practices become legal, rampant, public, and "acceptable" in America. And, all that to the hurt of sinner and society alike.
Charles Whitaker (1944-2021)
Sodom, Here We Come
In this passage, Paul gives a brief but appalling overview of the effect of people turning their backs on the Creator God. Mankind has worshipped the creation more than the Creator, and thus, God gave mankind over to vile affections and to a mind devoid of true judgment—his own natural mind. Since man's experiences shaped his judgment regarding conduct, his ability to judge truth became vague and led to the horrible perversions Paul lists. Today, the world groans with the weight of bearing the fruit of this idolatry.
Our own personal experience confirms the validity of these verses. Paul lists the consequences of a purely secular mind, which resulted from leaving the True Source of right standards out of our lives. He shows that when we follow the path described, we not only lose godliness but also true humanity.
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Second Commandment (1997)
What are the results of rejecting God?
1. Uncleanness, meaning moral impurity;
2. Longing or desiring, especially what is forbidden;
3. Disgracing each other by mutual consent, meaning unlawful and impure connections with one another. Verse 24 contemplates not just a perversion of sex—homosexuality—but any use of it outside of God's law, such as fornication.
Paul describes more of what rejecting God leads to:
For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. (verses 26-27)
Should we be shocked at the explosion of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in today's world? God tells those that reject Him that such diseases are fitting penalties for the wrong use of sex. Mankind has tried to "advance beyond consequences" in this area by advocating "safe-sex" through the use of contraceptives. However, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently admitted that condoms do not prevent the transmission of most STDs. Mankind cannot outsmart God!
David C. Grabbe
What Evolution Really Means
The apostle's words are playing out openly in our daily news as marriage loses its traditional value in this society. In this passage, Paul describes the current generation—how men have rejected God's will and supplanted it with gross idolatry and how they have become lovers of themselves, exalting the creation and their desires above the Creator. With this foundation and with God allowing mankind to pursue its own course for the present, human nature desires to remake all of God's institutions in its own image, and the marriage covenant is in its cross-hairs.
Marriage and family are the foundations of any healthy society, and these two bedrocks of civilization are slowly being dismantled before our eyes. When these foundations, which God formed in righteousness, are weakened further, it will prepare for a different foundation—one formed in unrighteousness to support the coming of the lawless one, the son of perdition, as II Thessalonians 2:3-10 foretells.
Marriage and family were undefiled when God gave them as a gift to mankind before sin entered the world. In Genesis 2:18, God enacted the first social foundation for mankind: "And the LORD God said, 'It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.'" Then, in verse 24, God sanctifies Adam's relationship with Eve by declaring that the two would be joined together as one flesh, that a man and his wife should leave mother and father, cling to each other, and become their own family unit. In other words, marriage was dignified and defined by God as a joining of one man and one woman.
Why did God do it this way? He could have just kept on creating one man after another to populate the earth. It was unlikely that He would run out of the dust of the earth. However, He made them male and female for a reason.
The prophet Malachi reveals a major reason why God created man and woman to become one flesh. The answer is part of God's castigation of Judah for tolerating easy divorce laws. In Malachi 2:11, He says that by doing so, the Jews had profaned the holy institution of marriage that God so dearly loves.
Yet you say, "For what reason [are you angry]?" Because the LORD has been witness between you and the wife of your youth, with whom you have dealt treacherously; yet she is your companion and your wife by covenant. But did He not make them one, having a remnant of the Spirit? And why one? He seeks godly offspring. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth. "For the LORD God of Israel says that He hates divorce, for it covers one's garment with violence," says the LORD of hosts. (Malachi 2:14-16)
Because He wants godly children, God made humans male and female. Within the structure of a proper, married family life, strong in unity and free from worries of separation, it would produce the best results.
From this comes a second reason why God made them male and female. With the blessing of children, God has bestowed on mankind the gift of allowing parents to become His partners in His creative works by rearing children who are prepared to answer His calling. This spiritual reproductive process will one day bring many sons and daughters into God's Family. This realization places families and marriage far above what most in the world consider them to be. It elevates them to a moral level unrecognizable in this world of sin.
The wisdom and depths of love that God has for mankind are beyond our abilities to know fully, but it is clear that marriage and family are prominent in God's plan. Any changes to the divine structure are an affront to God and His plan. Marriage is of divine origin, and changes to it are nothing less than man's rebellion against his Creator.
James Beaubelle
The Sacredness of Marriage
Verse 18 gives us the context, the proclivity of mankind to suppress the truth. Some translations say they suppress the truth “by” (rather than “in”) their unrighteousness, reinforcing the link between disobedience and blindness (Deuteronomy 28:28-29; Psalm 111:10). God has given all humanity a measure of understanding, at least about His existence, but most turn away in favor of something false that seems more reasonable to them. Even though Satan and his demons whisper their deceptions in the background, the people blind themselves through their choices. Satan forces no one; as with Eve, he adds fuel to an already-kindled fire of carnality and resistance to the truth.
People choose to close their eyes, and as the apostle Paul writes in verse 24, God responds by giving them over to that choice. He does not approve of or accept what they do but allows it to play out. At some point, they will understand the futility of rejecting God's way.
Paul states this principle again in verse 26: God gives them up to what is in their hearts, not realizing that they have cursed themselves by their choices. Ironically, they probably feel relief and liberation, having cut themselves off from bearing any accountability to uphold God's standards.
What begins with suppressing the truth in verse 18 ends with a debased mind in verse 28. As part of His judgment, God gives people over to the dominion of their choices' consequences. These verses depict God essentially taking His hands away to allow people to mess up their lives still further. However, other scriptures show God actively amplifying sin's effects; sometimes, God makes the spiritual plight of those rebelling against Him even worse.
In Amos 8:11, God calls for a famine of hearing His Word. It is a different metaphor but still analogous to blinding in that He diminishes the understanding of the people. The famine of hearing is a devastating curse because God takes away the very thing that could help the nation: The ability to hear His truth. His action may seem cruel, but the fault does not lie with Him but with the peoples' previous choices. We have a saying today, “Be careful what you wish for.” Israel yearned after her neighbors' paganism and so did not heed the revelation He had given to her, thus He began to take away her understanding.
David C. Grabbe
Spiritual Blindness (Part Three): Choosing a Curse
Other Forerunner Commentary entries containing Romans 1:27:
Exodus 4:21
Exodus 20:14
Exodus 20:14
Leviticus 18:26-28
Ezekiel 9:3-4
Amos 8:11-14
Romans 1:18
Romans 1:22-25
2 Thessalonians 2:9-12
2 Timothy 2:14-17
1 John 2:15-17
