“They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish…” – Romans 1:28
Let us consider who make up the “they” in the passage above. The “they” are the same group mentioned in v26. Those of whom it says, “God gave them up to dishonorable passions.” But why did he do so? A verse before tells us; namely, because “they exchanged the truth about God for a lie.” Now here is cause for fear, and for seeking God with all sincerity that we may be saved. The “they” are comprised of every sinner in love with their idolatry. Indeed, the end result of an idolater – that is, everyone who loves and worships created things as opposed to God (who is blessed forever. Amen), is God’s judgement in letting them go to their own will and ways. They are filled with all manner of wickedness, and their end is most to be pitied.
But now lets get even more specific. What exactly is idolatry, and how do we commit it? In simple terms, idolatry is placing anything or anyone in the position that only God should have preeminence. How we commit idolatry, then, is by doing things, or valuing things, or enjoying things, that prove we do not love God above those things. As a result, therefore, loving money above God is an example of idolatry. Hence, the scripture says, “keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have” (Hebrews 13:5). And again it says, “the love of money is the root of all evil” (1 Tim 6:10). This is only one form idolatry. Another example of idolatry could be loving persons; whether mother, child, husband, wife, etc., above God. Therefore, again, the scripture says, “whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:37). But now let us consider what may be the most common form of idolatry, as seen implicit in two verses from our aforementioned chapter.
- …”They exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man” (Romans 1:23).
- …”They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator (Romans 1:25).
People who are given over to idolatry exchange the glory of God for (1) mortal man, and (2) worship the creature rather than the creator. What moral man/woman or creature do we naturally love most and/or best? I shall answer thus: Self. It is self with whom we are preoccupied. Consider my answer and see it for more than conjecture, but truth. For the answer is axiomatic. The things which we give most of our time, thoughts, energies, efforts, money, etc., are not means to serve others, but to serve self. This is because we love ourselves more than everyone and everything else. Even the good we do for others, often times, have self-glorification as its motive. For the natural man, loving self is not only easy, but necessary. It is first and foremost in his thinking. Therefore, our own poets speak as prophets when they wrote concerning what is natural in our hearts. For they say, “learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all,” and again, “I am the master of my fate, the captain of my soul.” But what is the end result of an unrepentant idolatry? The result is a dangerous regression of which there is no repentance. For it says, “God gave them up to a debased mind to do what should not be done” (v28). This sort – that is, those who have a debased mind, make up the “they” that describe the people in the text above.
Chronicles of a Christian 