These are my ongoing study notes on the book of Romans. I might change my mind about some things and will likely edit these notes extensively through the course of this study. Consider it a rough draft.
The Common Sense Bible Study online community is going through the book of Romans on Thursday nights. Join the conversation here.
Initial Thoughts
- Paul was a Jewish lawyer (rabbi is a later term created in Babylon) and a Pharisee all his life. A student of Gamaliel.
- Paul can't create new laws. He cannot speak contrary to Yeshua or Moses.
- Written before he went to Rome. The congregation there was established by someone else. 55-56 AD?
- What is Systematic Theology? Not Romans!
- Writing to explain the theology of adoption into Israel.
- Paul as the thirteenth Apostle fits the pattern of Israel as 11, 12, and 13 tribes.
The Literary Chiastic Structure of Romans
Romans 1
V1 - Doulos (δουλος) literally means "slave". Greeks might have differentiated between a slave and a bondservant, but a Jew wouldn't see a difference in the context of a Hebrew enslaved to another Hebrew. Except, that is, for the case of the slave in Exodus 21:5-6 who devotes his life to his master for the sake of his family, and that is how Paul seems to be identifying himself. This is underscored by his willingness, expressed later in the letter, to give up his own salvation for the sake of his fellow Jews.It's notable that he never refers to himself as Saul in his letters, perhaps emphasizing his new identity in Christ, as opposed to his old identity as an enforcer for the Jewish religious authorities. Paul's apostleship was not self-assumed; it was a divine calling, rooted in his obedience to the One who sent him. He says that he was "called an apostle", because his commission was not of his own choice. He was on a mission for another master when Yeshua intercepted him.
Paul was saying that he was a personal possession and emissary of Yeshua due to one of three reasons: 1) He was in debt to Yeshua beyond hope of paying it back, 2) He sold himself to Yeshua to pay a debt to someone else, or 3) He was a slave for one of the two prior reasons, but voluntarily submitted to his master for life out of love.
As an apostolos (αποστολος), Paul is not merely a disciple but an agent sent with the authority of the one who sent him. His being "set apart" (aforismenos, αφωρισμενος) likely alludes both to his religious identity as a Pharisee, a group whose name means "separated," and his current role, distinct from the world, to preach the Gospel of the risen Messiah. This setting apart reflects the broader call of God’s people to be separate from the world for God's purposes, as seen in Psalm 4 and Isaiah 40:9-11.
V2 - What is the Gospel that was promised and where?
- Isaiah 40:9-11 - Jerusalem is summoned to proclaim the Good News of the arrival of the Almighty with great power, rescuing his people from their oppressors and gently gathering them together.
- Isaiah 52:7-10 - The Good News is a proclamation of peace, salvation, and God's reign. The messenger of good news declares that God's redemption of his people has cone in a manner that no one from the nations can deny.
- Isaiah 61:1-3 - The Prophet proclaims the Good News of redemption, healing, and full restoration of the people of Israel.
- Nahum 1:15 - The Good News is the celebration of God's appointed times without interference form the nations, the people of Israel keeping God's covenants, and the wicked being completely removed from their midst.
Yeshua must be an heir of David in order to be Israel’s king according to the Davidic covenant described in 2 Samuel 23:1-7, 2 Chronicles 21:7, and Psalm 89:2-4, and he must have a king’s authority over Israel in order to be her Messiah. God counted tribal membership in Israel patrilineally (from father to son), so Yeshua could not have been a son of David by the most strict, traditional reckoning. However, two factors alleviate this problem.
- First, Yeshua was Joseph’s adopted son, and throughout the Scriptures, God recognizes adoption for the purposes of tribal membership and inheritance. See the Millennial prophecy of land division in Ezekiel 47:21-23 and consider the mixed multitude that came out of Egypt with the native Israelites and were given an inheritance alongside the native born at that time also. It seems that the only exception to that rule concerns the Levitical priesthood.
- Second, Yeshua’s mother Mary was also of the house of David. Many scholars believe that the genealogy in Luke 3:23-38 is Mary’s and not Joseph’s. When it says “being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph, of Heli”, it means that he was adopted by Joseph who was the son-in-law of Heli. (Note that the Greek text doesn’t say “son of Heli”, but only “of Heli”. “Son” is inserted by most translators, but should not be, in my opinion.) Although this is a matrilineal connection, it reinforces Yeshua’s adoption into the house of David by Joseph.
V4 - Paul's authority wasn't just given by a foreign king, but by God himself. By whom was Yeshua declared to be the Son of God? By God himself in Matthew 17:5, Mark 9:7, and Luke 9:35. "Declared to be the Son of God" is an explicit statement of Yeshua's authority even over Caesar, an especially relevant point for a Roman in Rome.
Not only was Yeshua's claim to the throne backed by the Gospel accounts and by the Apostles, most of whom were still alive at the time Paul wrote Romans, but it was backed by his pedigree in the house of David, which would have been common knowledge to the residents of Nazareth and Bethlehem, although certainly maligned by his enemies. His claim to divinity was backed by displays of power in a spirit of holiness, not violence or showmanship, and by his resurrection from the dead. These things didn't make him the Son of God, but declared him so in the sight of all the nations as hinted at in the Gospel prophecies of Isaiah. Paul was called from one thing to another (v1), while Yeshua was revealed to be who he had always been.
V5 - "For the sake of his name" because the inclusion of the nations in the New Covenant was promised to Abraham and through the Prophets, so God sent Paul in order to fulfill that promise. See Zechariah 8:23.
Paul is not writing this letter in cooperation with anyone besides his scribe Tertius (see 16:22), so it's possible that the "we" in "We have received grace and apostleship" includes the believers in Rome, however the "including you" in the beginning of the next verse probably indicates that he means his fellow Apostles. Although all people who are called to be Yeshua's are also called to be his apostles, even if they are not especially separated out for a grand purpose, but those specifically called by Yeshua himself are unique in their Apostolic calling. See Acts 2:42-43, for example, where the believers in Jerusalem "devoted themselves to the teachings of the Apostles", which would make little sense if all believers were regularly called "apostles".
"Grace and apostleship" are always given to enable the Apostle to bring about repentance and faithfulness among those to whom he is sent. Such repentance doesn't refer to merely changing one's mind, but to changing one's heart, leading to a total transformation of the person, including his outward behavior.
"Obedience of faith" (not "obedience to the faith") is that obedience brought about by faith. See the same phrase in 16:26, where the obedience is "of faith", but to God. This obedience was prophesied in Psalm 67 in which the nations of the earth learn God's ways (read: commandments), yielding a great harvest from all over the world. The Psalmist explains, as Paul hints in Romans 1:16 and 3:2, that the blessings of God's election, Law, and covenants came first to Israel so that, through them, all the world might be blessed by learning God's ways in accordance with his promise to Abraham in Genesis 12. This obedience was also prophesied more explicitly in Isaiah 2:2-4.
"Obedience of faith" also refers to the obedience that is promised by faith. When we first commit our souls to Yeshua, we don't immediately become perfectly obedient to all of his commandments. Our sins are forgiven, and we become his, but the perfection of our walk is a long process that we see in the present only through eyes of faith that trust in his ongoing grace and the synergy of the written word, the Holy Spirit, and our determination to remain faithful. In this sense, our obedience is like the Kingdom of Heaven and eternal life: already and not yet. It is already ours, but not yet fully in our possession.
V6 - Paul is not addressing a select group of Romans who have been called as if there are some in Rome who are not called. Rather, he assures the believers in Rome that they have also been called, just as all those in Jerusalem and Antioch have been called. We are all called to belong to Yeshua, but only those among the nations who respond to the call with the obedience of faith will be counted among the people of Israel.
V7 - Although this letter was written to address specific problems within the Roman assembly (hence “to all those in Rome”), Paul also intended for it to be general enough to address all Jews and Gentiles who might find themselves in similar circumstances or with similar questions.
Because God loves you, whether Jew or Gentile, Roman or American, you are called to be set apart (saints), which never refers to an inward state that has no outward effect. Holiness is an inward state that has profound effect on your speech, behavior, and viewpoint. We are called to be holy in every respect.
“Grace to you” in the second half of the verse is probably not meant to be separate from “peace” as if the grace was from Paul and the peace from God. That sentence could probably have been written as “Grace and peace to you from God...” instead of “Grace to you and peace from God...” without changing the meaning. The grace that enables forgiveness can only come from God, because he is the only one capable or authorized to forgive. He is the ultimate aggrieved party in our sins, and only he can remove our guilt and restore peace in our relationship with him.
Paul refers to "God our Father" to emphasize that God is the father of all disciples of Yeshua, as we all are through the spiritual rebirth enabled by his death and resurrection. The separation of “God our Father” and “The Lord Jesus Christ” might lead some to believe that Paul did not believe in Yeshua’s divinity, but that is only because we are so prone to taking snippets of Paul’s writings out of context, as if he were writing a collection of one-line proverbs for modern Americans. Paul’s separation of these terms no more implies that Yeshua is not God, than Galatians 6:11 implies that Paul’s hand is not Paul. Elsewhere, Paul clearly speaks of Yeshua as God. See Colossians 2:9 and Titus 2:13, for example. When he seems to speak of them as separate entities, "God" always refers to "God the Father" as in this verse, as distinct from "God the Son", who is our firstborn, elder brother in relation to the Father.
V8 - "Through Jesus Christ" - Yeshua is the mediator of the New Covenant and the only way to the Father. Our prayers are directed to the Father, but through the mediation, righteousness, and authority of Yeshua. Paul thanks God because ultimately our faith grows through the power and influence of God, not merely through our own effort. He does not thank the Son, but God through the Son. That doesn't mean that the Son isn't God, but that he is the conduit through which we connect to the Father.
Proton (πρωτον) at the beginning of the verse should be understood to mean "firstly" as in "before I say anything else" and not “first” as in the first of a series. Paul is reassuring his readers that they are important and recognized, that his sole purpose in writing isn't to rebuke them. Like Christ, he corrects because he loves. Good teachers and leaders often precede correction with encouragement.
"All the world" at the end of the verse is hyperbole. Obviously, the faith of the Roman disciples had not been proclaimed in the Americas or Australia and probably not even so far as Crimea or Britain. Luke 2:1 uses a similar phrase in describing the extent of the Augustan registration. Although the Romans traded with peoples as far away as China, nobody would have thought Luke meant Augustus decreed that the Chinese people should be registered. Paul means “all the world” in the same general sense as we might say, "Everyone knows that Jerry is amazing," although we are perfectly aware that the vast majority of people in the world have never even heard of Jerry, let alone of his character. All of Paul’s letters must be read as they were written: in a conversational tone full of idioms, hyperbole, and ambiguity.
V9 - “For God is my witness” indicates the making of an oath. Paul isn’t contradicting what Yeshua said in Matthew 5:37. Yeshua, like Solomon, was teaching principles, not technical details of how to keep the Law. In other words, he was saying, "Don't complicate things. Don't look for loopholes. If you say something is true, be sure that it's true," and not necessarily that one should never take an oath. Sometimes a solemn or forceful oath is appropriate if it helps your listeners to accept the truth of what you are saying.
Only God knows what Paul prayed in private, so who else could bear witness to what he prayed? Paul frequently appeals to the witness of God to confirm a statement. See Romans 8:16, 2 Corinthians 1:23, Philippians 1:8, and 1 Thessalonians 2:5 for examples.
"I serve with my spirit" means to serve with his deepest being. It has the same meaning as "worship in spirit and truth". Paul serves the purpose of his commission, the spreading of the Gospel of the Kingdom of Yeshua, with his whole being.
V10 - Why did Paul pray so much for the Roman believers? Probably because he knew they had been leaderless for years, especially since Aquila and Priscilla had left. Paul’s primary mission was to bring the Gospel to places that had not yet heard it, fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah 52:15 as he discusses in the corresponding element on the other end of the Romans Chiasm in 15:20-22. Since Rome already had an established congregation, visiting them was necessarily a lower priority, but they were still on his mind, so he prayed for them continually instead.
V11 - Paul says that his reason for wanting to visit is to impart some spiritual gift to strengthen (stirikhthenai, στηριχθηναι, could also mean to confirm or establish) them. Elsewhere in his writings, Paul speaks of character traits, skills, and miracles as spiritual gifts, but these are gifts of the Holy Spirit to individuals, not to entire congregations. In this case, he probably isn’t referring to an ability to work miracles, prophesy, etc., but to a gift of instruction that will correct their path, bring unity to their congregation, and cohesiveness to their doctrine. This corporate strengthening is the purpose of the gifts and commissions given to individual believers as described in 1 Corinthians 12:4-11 and Ephesians 4:11-13.
V12 - The KJV translates simparahklithenai (συμπαρακληθηναι) as “to be comforted together”, and that might have been a good translation in the 17th century, and it isn’t entirely wrong for today, but it isn’t quite right either. Paul isn’t talking about alleviating someone’s mourning or suffering, but about exhortation or imparting confidence.
The encouragement that Paul speaks of for himself is the assurance that the Roman assembly has been returned to a healthier, more edifying path. He isn't just intending to bring them "some spiritual gift" (v11), but to correct their quickly drifting doctrine and widening divisions. In this way, they will both be strengthened in their faith.
V13 - The Roman believers probably felt somewhat abandoned when most or all of their leaders had to leave Rome and some of them never returned. Paul was reassuring them that they were not forgotten, that he had every intention to visit them personally when circumstances allowed.
Paul gives three reasons for wanting to visit the Roman assembly: First, to strengthen the Romans in their faith and maturity. Second, to assure himself that they are on a good spiritual path. Third, to show a return on his own balance sheet for his investment in their spiritual growth. That third reason might seem prideful, but consider the parable of the talents. God rewards those who use his resources for the expansion of his Kingdom, and we should all work toward such rewards.
V14 - Paul’s obligation was created by his commission to be Yeshua’s apostle to the nations. His first obligation is to Yeshua, of course, but God promised to bring the Gospel to the nations (Isaiah 52:15 and other passages), and he delegated that responsibility, in part, to Paul, who once tried to stop the Gospel from spreading.
The Jews divided the world’s population into two categories: Jew (wise because they had God’s Law) and Gentile (foolish because they worshiped lesser pagan gods). The Greeks did much the same with the category of Greeks and barbarians. They were wise because they had their gods, philosophies, and sciences. The barbarians were foolish because they did not “understand” that their tribal deities were only provincial manifestations of the universal gods worshiped--with greater understanding--by the Greeks.
V15 - Paul is addressing Romans who thought of themselves as yet a third category from those discussed in v14. When he says “you also who are in Rome”, he obliquely acknowledges that they are neither Greek nor barbarian. The Romans admired Greek, but considered themselves to have taken up the culture and learning of the Greeks and improved on it in ways that the Greeks could not. They seemed to have had a more nuanced view of the nations than did the Greeks and Jews, but not dramatically so. Instead of two categories, they had four: Roman, Greek, Barbarian, and the Jews, who stubbornly refused to fit into anyone else’s system.
V16 - "I am not ashamed" is probably a deliberate understatement intended to mean "I am greatly honored". This is connected to Romans 15:17 on the opposite side of the Romans Chiasm.
The Gospel is the power of God to save all who believe, and not just the Jews to whom the messianic promises were first given. It is his power because there is power in his word. If he says something is true, then it is true. If he says that you will be saved, then you will be. Since God promised in Isaiah 2 and 11 (and other passages, especially in Isaiah) that the nations have an opportunity to join the Messiah’s people as a result of the sins of the native born Israelites, we can be absolutely certain that we have that opportunity.
"Everyone who believes" underscores that the offer of salvation has been extended to all peoples, but it also means that you must believe that God has come to set up his Kingdom and wants you to be restored to relationship with him in that Kingdom in order to take advantage of that offer. Paul says “to the Jew first and also to the Greek, because, as indicated in the Isaiah passages mentioned above, this offer is made as a result of the native Israelites having first rejected it, which logically requires that it must be offered to the Jew before it can be offered to the Greek.
Although Paul mentions five classifications of people in this passage (Jew, Gentile, Greek, Barbarian, and Roman), but with “the Greek” at the end of this verse he combines all but the Jew into a synecdoche for “Gentiles”. Ancient Jewish literature clearly shows a great admiration for the Greek people despite considering them to be in spiritual darkness. As a Jew, it’s possible that Paul believed his Roman audience might take “gentile” (Greek ethnos) as vaguely insulting. They certainly would have thought so if he had called them “barbarians” (Greek barbaros), whereas “Greek” (Hellen) would be a more acceptable term that they could interpret as referring to themselves as well as to the Greeks and barbarian peoples. He uses this same phrase, “to the Jew first and also the Greek”, twice more in Romans 2:9-10, and each time, it’s clear by the context that he means all non-Jews.
V17 - "Righteousness" might better be read as "justice". Both English words can be used to translate dikaisoune (δικαιοσυνη), but modern readers tend to associate “righteousness” with a personal characteristic of goodness and lawfulness, whereas “justice” is more about the standard of goodness and lawfulness, which is what Paul really means here.
The justice of God is revealed in the Gospel because the establishment of his Law (Jeremiah 31:33 and Micah 4:2) and the judgment of the wicked (Isaiah 13:11 and Micah 4:11-13) are inherent parts of the Gospel, which is the inauguration of the Kingdom of Heaven and all that comes with it (Matthew 4:17).
The meaning of the phrase “from faith for faith” or, as some versions translate it, “from faith to faith”, could be interpreted in any number of ways, but two interpretations seem most plausible to me: First, we can be assured that God’s justice and wrath are certain because God is always faithful to his word. By his faithfulness demonstrated over time, our faith is strengthened and manifested in our own faithfulness toward him. Second, faith is like any muscle or skill, in that it is increased by being put to use. The more we trust in God, the more faithful we are to him, the more we learn to trust, and the more we are able to remain faithful to him. The discussion of the wrath of God in the following verses would seem to support the first interpretation over the second.
"The righteous shall live by faith" is a quote from Habakkuk 2:4 in which "righteous" is again more literally translated as "just" and could be thought of as "justified". By our trust in him and our surrender to his merciful judgment, we are justified or decreed to be righteous, regardless of past sins. Once forgiven, we walk out our belief in the promises and commandments of God by faithfully living accordingly. Even if we don't understand how God's laws or actions are righteous, our faith requires that we accept that it is.
God's justice is different than man's, though, and doesn’t rely on rote obedience to rules. Although we will be judged by what we do, God sees beyond the deed into the heart and mind. We are judged by what we do only because our outward faithfulness is inevitably informed by our inward faith and faithfulness. If you trust God with all your being, he counts you as one of his and will save you, even if your obedience is flawed. This is the righteousness of God.
V18 - The wrath of God is revealed from heaven in three ways:
- The destruction brought by God or by his natural laws in response to wickedness.
- Prophetic warnings and pronouncements given through prophets and the Scriptures.
- The conscience of each individual, reflected from the primordial image of God within them.
God is both love and wrath. He loved the world while we were still sinners, but because our sin brings death and suffering, his love requires wrath. No loving parent allows his child to go on behaving in ways that will only bring him pain? If he loves us, he must be violently opposed to sin. “So you will know in your heart that YHWH your God was disciplining you as a man disciplines his son. Therefore, you will keep the commandments of YHWH your God, to walk in his ways and to fear him.” (Deuteronomy 8:5-6)
In order to go on being unrighteous, a person must suppress the truth of God’s Law, both externally and internally, the objective written Law and the subjective inner law of the conscience. God often responds to such willful disobedience by giving us more of what we want. Remember how Pharaoh determined to refuse God’s command to let his people go, so God hardened his heart until the full measure of his wrath had been poured out on Egypt. Paul addresses this dynamic in more detail in the following passage through 2:16.
- Individual Complexity - The internal complexity of living things and the intricate balance of systems within systems requires a designer of extraordinary intelligence and foresight. Every lifeform is a self-repairing, self-replicating machine that becomes more complex, the closer you examine it, from the outer defenses of skin and bark all the way down to molecular factories beyond anything man has been able to copy with all of our technology. Individual organisms are so complex, even at the molecular level, that removing any one of thousands of different components or sub-systems will destroy the entire organism, yet those systems themselves are self-policing, removing, replacing, or repairing damaged components before they can cause significant harm. See Psalm 139:14.
- Biome Complexity - The interplay between organisms, even across species, also testifies to the existence of an intelligent, deliberate creator. Trees warn each other of danger. Viruses, bacteria, fungi, grasses, herbivores, and the most complex predators all cooperate, without any apparent conscious intention, to feed each other and keep ecosystems healthy. As local conditions change, local lifeforms adjust populations, habitats, and even genetic expression to compensate. See Job 38:39-41.
- Universal Fine Tuning - Physics demonstrates that our entire universe seems designed at every level to support life. A slight change in any number of values--some of which I could name, but won’t pretend to understand--would change the universe in such a way that life would become impossible. Stars and planets would cease to exist, let alone the minerals, seas, and atmosphere required by living organisms. See Psalm 19:1.
In the face of the overwhelming evidence for a Creator, his existence can only be denied by deliberate, continuous rejection and indoctrination. A child, left to himself, would assume that everything was created, and he must be trained to think otherwise.
One implication of this truth is that a person can attain a very basic knowledge of God’s identity without ever hearing the words YHWH, Jesus, Yeshua, Gospel, etc. All of those things are knowable, at least in conception, through the honest observation of Creation. If there is a Creator, then he has a purpose in creating. If he has a purpose for Creation, then he has a purpose for individual creatures. If he has a purpose for individual creatures, then he desires them to behave according to his plan. If his creatures will not behave according to his plan, then they should expect to be corrected, destroyed, or isolated so that they can’t interfere with the correct operation of the rest of Creation. Creatures who choose to act according to the Creator’s purposes can reasonably expect to be rewarded, although the Creator is under no obligation to do so. All of Creation, including every individual creature, belongs to the Creator and is dependent on him for its continued existence, and he is fully within his rights to use it however he wills, including destroying it.
Acceptance of the inevitability of God is in some ways more important than an academic knowledge about God, because a great deal can be learned of God’s character from the nature of what he has already done, apart from any special revelation or divinely inspired writings. As Job 12:7-9 says, “ask the beasts, and they will teach you; the birds of the heavens, and they will tell you; or the bushes of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of YHWH has done this?”
V21 - Everyone, at some point, has a true epiphany of God. Everyone is presented with a window to the divine, but most people choose to turn away and suppress the truth in favor of a familiar, self-soothing lie. If you are determined to reject the truth, eventually you condition yourself to believe falsehoods and cripple your ability to evaluate and interpret the universe. The most intelligent people in the world have convinced themselves to believe the most absurd, anti-God fantasies because they decided to interpret the world through faulty premises. As Yeshua said in John 3:19, “they loved the darkness more than the light” because the darkness allows them to pretend that they are their own gods, defining their own standard of righteousness.
V22 - The philosophers and wise men of the ancient civilizations poured their energy into learning about God and then explaining away what they learned by attributing it to something else. They had wisdom in the grasp and threw it away like rebellious children. The Jewish people weren’t much better than the Greeks, as Jeremiah 10:14 attests. See also Isaiah 5:21.
V23 - All people have an innate drive to worship something, to align and ally with something greater than ourselves, but a being that created the universe must be effectively infinite in power and in his right to demand compliance with his standards. A smaller god comes with smaller standards. The sun may be intimidating in its power and ability to give life or take it away, but its existence doesn’t necessarily imply any demands on our behavior. Elevating an animal to the status of a god enables one to indulge his most animalistic urges and call it a virtue. It’s easy to worship heavenly bodies, earth-bound creatures, and inanimate objects because they make no real demands other than what we choose for ourselves.
Paul wrote this letter from one capital city of idolatry, Corinth, to residents of another, Rome. To many Christians in the West today, this kind of idol worship with festivals, incense, and sacrifice, is a hypothetical problem with little connection to their daily lives. That wasn’t the case for Paul and his Roman audience. Idolatry was everywhere. Human sacrifice was still common in most of the world, and hundreds of animals were sacrificed to the gods of Greece, Rome, and a dozen other pagan cultures in both cities every day.
Like the ancients, today’s Darwinists have become so enamored by God's creation and so desperate to deny God’s authority to make laws and punish disobedience that, in some ways, they worship the creation rather than the Creator, even making nature out to be its own creator. This isn’t so far from confused ancient pagan genealogies in which the convoluted relationships of air, light, land, sky, and sea (represented by deities such as Gaia, Uranus, and Oceanus) give rise to spirits which represent streams, trees, animals, and eventually mankind.
V24-25 - If you reject that which every child can discern, why should God invite you into deeper truths? Some people are intent on believing a lie. God didn’t create any specific individuals with the intent of forcing them to commit depravity and therefore to be objects of his wrath, but he does allow them to be who they want to be. He allows time for their depravity to consume them so that their guilt and God’s justice in punishing them becomes clear to everyone.
If they “exchanged the truth about God for a lie”, then they necessarily possessed that truth at one time. This reinforces what I said concerning vs 19-21. Everyone has access to the truth about God, and everyone had that truth within them at some point before exchanging it for something easier today, even though it will cost them everything at the final Judgment.
See Isaiah 40:18-24, 44:9-20.
V26 - “Dishonorable passions” in this verse is pathe atimios (παθη ατιμιας), shameful passions of the mind. Pathos refers to sickness, not just deviant desires. What we think of as passions would be orexis as in v27, not pathos. When Paul speaks of dishonorable passions, he's addressing a profound spiritual and moral sickness where individuals forsake God's clear design for human relationships. I’m not saying that we must deny all personal desires but that recognizing that some desires, when they lead away from God's design, are afflictions of the spirit, paths leading away from the healthy spiritual integrity he intends for us. In this light, homosexuality, as addressed in this verse, isn’t just a personal choice but a symptom of a deeper rejection of the Creator's right to assign purpose and function to his creation.
“Natural” is the Greek phusikos (φυσικην), which refers to that which is in accordance with the essence of something. Homosexuality is almost universally considered deviant behavior, contrary to the essence of mankind. Even in societies where homosexual practices are accepted or even celebrated, there remains an underlying acknowledgment, often unspoken, of its departure from the norm. This isn't about legal or social acceptance but about an inherent recognition of what all humans perceive as contrary to the natural order.
To argue in favor of homosexual behavior, as many do, by citing animal behavior in abnormal circumstances misses the point entirely. People are not animals. We are created in God's image and commissioned to rule over the animal kingdom (Genesis 1:26-28). To lower ourselves to mimic animal behavior is to reject that divine calling, to forsake the stewardship and dominion we were given. Human behavior should not be judged by animalistic standards but by divine revelation and by the natural law that was once written on our hearts and can be again.
In Genesis 1:28, God commanded mankind to multiply and fill the earth. This is both prescriptive and descriptive. Throughout Scripture and even in the natural inclinations God built into us, marriage is intended as a union between man and woman for the purposes of procreation and companionship. This is a divine mandate, transcending mutable cultural norms.
Verse 26 addresses female homosexuality, while v27 addresses male. Paul might have chosen to mention them separately because they have different roots and they violate God’s Law in different ways. There is no specific commandment against female-female intimacy, but there is a command and an established norm that women should marry and have children. Lesbianism rejects God's design and command in favor of a woman’s own, sometimes as a reaction against abuse by men and sometimes as simple rebellion against God.
V27 - "Passion for one another" is orexis (ορεξει, orexei), not pathos. This is more about indulging physical desires, than about spiritual sickness, although the indulgence produces the sickness in time. The "due penalty" mentioned at the end of the verse is threefold: spiritual condemnation, the pathe atimios of the previous verse (an increasing propensity for wickedness), and physical illness in the form of sexually transmitted disease as well as hormonal dysregulation and epigenetic effects that might aggravate the feminine propensities that are often consciously adopted by people engaged in such behavior. One perversity breeds another and another, like leaven. This is one reason why the worst male pedophiles usually prefer male victims. “Victimless” wickedness often leads to the creation of victims who go on to repeat the behaviors of the original perpetrators.
V28-31 - Rejecting God and embracing immorality destroys the mind's ability to think rationally. When you know the truth and deliberately practice a lie, you drive a wedge between yourself and God that may prove impossible to remove. Once you have made yourself unreachable, there is no limit to the depravity that your heart and mind is capable of.
A person who indulges in such behaviors, knowing full well that they are wholly contrary to God's laws, has deliberately chosen to spit in God's face. Having driven that wedge between him and the truly divine, he will begin to believe his own lies, and his thoughts will cease to be rational, if they ever were. His reasoning will be warped because his mind has shut off an entire part of his being and a huge aspect of reality for which he can no longer account, and so he will fall further into sickness. Although Deuteronomy 28:28 is talking about the national consequences of national rebellion against God, the nation can’t suffer madness and “confusion of mind” unless individual members of the nation succumb first.
Paul described the behavior of those who are beyond hope (i.e. of "a reprobate mind") as a parade of horrors worthy of death, but he singled out homosexuality for special treatment. He called it dishonorable, against nature, shameful, and erroneous. It isn't the practice of such things that cause a person to be beyond hope, but the love of them is evidence of their hopelessness. In other words, not all who do these things are reprobate, but the reprobate love to do these things.
This is not to say there is no hope for the homosexual and other dedicated sinners, but that hope is fleeting. If they do not repent when the Spirit gives them the chance, they may render themselves incapable of repentance. Such is the blasphemy of the Spirit, the unforgivable sin. It is not that God cannot forgive nor that he is unwilling to forgive, but that the 'reprobate mind' can no longer repent.
Hatred for God drives people to twist everything good into evil, even when it destroys themselves, because doing so allows them to show their spite for God. Keep your distance from people who embrace anti-Biblical morality or they will gradually corrupt your mind too. They can never be your friends.
This passage follows the same pattern as Paul's other statements concerning categories of people. Not all of these behaviors are explicitly sinful (e.g. foolishness here and drunkenness, anger, and rivalry in Galatians 5:19-21), but if these things become your identity, then you are surely also engaging in all kinds of God-hating sin.
V32 - Since we were created by God for God's purposes, those who reject what they know to be true and reject God's plan for them have no reason to complain about their condemnation. They are useless tools, so why should the toolmaker allow them to take up space in his workshop?
Everyone instinctively knows that heterosexuality and marriage are natural. People who want to reject God’s design in order to indulge their perverse passions convince themselves through choice and practice or by redefining words like “love” to justify their actions. Sometimes they are convinced by incessant brainwashing imposed by others, such as the public shaming and “training” imposed by entertainment, education, and journalism industries, or by pain and abuse inflicted on them.
