Man driven out of the Garden of Eden was left to himself and became utterly lawless. The divine record is that the earth became filled with corruption and violence; in fact, it became so bad that God cleansed it by the flood, which destroyed man and his works. This is not the story of progress and development, but of retrogression and the increasing fruit of sin.
Romans 1 unlocks the secrets of those past ages when man sank further and further into moral and spiritual depravity. Fallen man was not left without a due witness from his Creator, “because that which may be known of God is manifest in [or, to] them; for God hath showed it unto them. For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse” (Rom. 1:19-20).
God judges man according to the measure of his light and privilege, and there was always the testimony of God’s creatorial power to be seen in His works: “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth His handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge.” This is found in Psalm 19 where the psalmist goes on to add that these created orbs had neither speech nor language, but even without these their voice was heard by men. This left them “without excuse,” for they ignored the testimony of God in creation, which twenty-first-century scientists are also prone to do.
The Degeneration After the Flood
Romans 1:21 adds, “Because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful.” After the flood every man on earth had a definite knowledge of God; all that came out of the ark knew in a most remarkable fashion the power and judgment of God. This knowledge became traditional and was handed down from father to son, but, alas, they were not thankful to God. Has this no counterpart in the present day? How few there are that ever thank God for His creature mercies, or even lift their voices to Him in thanksgiving for the very food they eat. This is indeed a step downward.
Next, they “became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened” (vs. 21). Were they the only ones who let their imaginations run rampant? Is it not being done today, often under the guise of science? And “professing themselves to be wise, they became fools” (vs. 22). The vain conceit of man has always led, sooner or later, to the exposing of his folly.
Man, having given up the knowledge of the true God, invented gods of his own — gods of lust and passion. The unearthed evidences of crude and vulgar forms of religion only confirm the divine record, instead of proving an evolution in religion. A servant of the Lord once said, “Man gave up the knowledge that God was holy, and made gods of his lusts; he gave up the knowledge that God was good, and attempted to appease an angry God.”
Sacrifices to Demons
The degenerative process continued, for in a descending scale man went from the worship of images of fallen men to the worship of reptiles; he “changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and to four-footed beasts, and creeping things” (vs. 23). The finger of Satan is here apparent, for it was he who took the form of a serpent when he seduced Eve. He was leading men down from the worship of God to actual (though often disguised) worship of himself. Men worshipped idols, but behind them were wicked spirits: “The things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils [demons], and not to God” (1 Cor. 10:20).
In this corruption of religion lies the secret to the grossest immorality and the general debasement of mankind. They willfully gave up the knowledge of the true God when they had it and gave themselves over to become the tools of wicked spirits. Men were also seeking to communicate with the spirit world and to gain the favor of certain evil spirits, but, alas, they were taken captive by satanic powers. Debased spiritually and morally, they sank ever lower in their manner of life.
The Line of Faith
Nevertheless, there was a line of faith, in the descendants of Seth, which walked apart from these vices and lived and died in faith (Gen. 5; Heb. 11:13). This line narrowed down to Noah and his sons who went through the flood, preserved by God. After the flood, the line of faith came down through Shem, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, so that God always had some testimony among men. They were justified by faith, and God was later declared to be righteous in having passed over their sins — that is, after His beloved Son had died for sinners on the cross (Rom. 3:25). This was before Him from the beginning, for as soon as sin entered the world He spoke of the coming of the seed of the woman who would bruise the serpent’s head (Gen. 3:15).
After men had given up the knowledge of God and, insofar as they could, degraded the glory of the incorruptible God, He in His righteous government gave them up to uncleanness. Three times in Romans 1 we read that God gave them up: “Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor 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 forever. Amen. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections. ... And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient” (vss. 24-28).
Need we wonder that man lost the sense of propriety of wearing clothes and living in a civilized fashion? Take a man of this great twenty-first century and give him over to demonolatry, drug addiction and associated vices, and see what he becomes in a single generation.
The Corruption of Israel
Consider the favored nation of Israel whom God brought out of Egypt with great demonstrations of His goodness and might and what happened to them when they turned from the only true God to Egyptian idolatry by worshipping the golden calf. They “corrupted themselves.” When Moses came down from the mount with the tables of stone, he “saw that the people were naked, (for Aaron had made them naked unto their shame among their enemies)” (Ex. 32:25). They evidently adopted some of the heathen orgies at once. Think what a thousand or so years would do to any people. God had to warn His earthly people over and over against following the ways of the heathen, and when they departed from Him, they indulged in such hideous and forbidden practices as offering their own children in sacrifices to idols, behind which were demons.
The Degeneration
of the Present Time
That the world has advanced and that much of it has given up the grosser forms connected with religion is true, but it is in no small part due to the light of God that shone from His truth as revealed in Israel and later in Christianity, although obscured through their respective failures. Men dare not do in the light what they would avidly do in the dark. But the light of God is being again extinguished in much of the world through the advances of atheistic communism and through plain and outright rejection of divine revelation. As the influence of communism has waned somewhat over the past twenty years, we see this atheistic tendency manifested in a godless pursuit of money. Let the world be assured that “God is not mocked” (Gal. 6:7) and that this enlightened Western civilization is going to be given up by God to receive the devil’s lie in a day not far distant. “Because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: that they all might be damned who believed not the truth” (2 Thess. 2:10-12). God gave up the heathen world; He gave up Israel after they rejected their Messiah (Micah 5:3), and He will just as surely give up the people of today to gross darkness and all the results of it.
Let us remember that if any “speak not according to this word [the Word of God], it is because there is no light in them” (Isa. 8:20). It is not that they have a little light, but none at all. Remember too that “every word of God is pure” (Prov. 30:5). It is living and operative, and it pierces the inmost recesses of the heart, laying bare all its counsels (Heb. 4:12-13). Its entrance gives light and understanding to those who in simple faith accept it as it is in truth — THE WORD OF GOD (Psalm 119:130). It is that by which we may cleanse our ways (Psalm 119:9). All of it is inspired by God “and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect [or, complete], thoroughly furnished unto all good works” (2 Tim. 3:16-17). Take your stand unflinchingly on it, heedless of the scoffs and jeers of the ungodly, and you will never be put to shame now or in the time to come. That Word will abide for eternity: “Heaven and earth shall pass away: but My words shall not pass away” (Mark 13:31).
P. Wilson, adapted