Clark Beck / July 5, 2026
Main Idea: We need the righteousness of God to save us from the wrath of God that we deserve for suppressing the truth and exchanging his glory.
Romans 1:18-23 ESV — “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.”
Truth Appears First
This week, I was reading an article about how to detect if someone is lying to you. Basically, the article explained that most of what people say about non-verbal cues exposing a liar is false. Liars are actually really good at staying composed and looking relaxed. They give themselves away with verbal cues. They don’t want to give you many details, and they have trouble reconstructing timelines accurately.
Even more, there have been studies of the brain when someone is lying, and here’s where this gets interesting and relevant to our passage: MRI scans show that the truth pops up first in the brain. So truth always has to be suppressed by the person who chooses to lie. The article actually used that phrase, “the truth has to be suppressed.” This is exactly what Paul is telling us in Romans. As fallen humanity, we actively suppress the truth about God. It’s not that we don’t know the truth about God; it’s that we willingly exchange God’s glory for the lesser glory of his creation. Because of this, we are without excuse for our rejection of God.
Why Do We Need to Be Saved by God’s Righteousness Through Faith?
We have two great revelations of God: the righteousness of God is revealed as something we receive by faith, and right alongside it, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven. The wrath of God is God’s strong anger directed at those who sin, a function of God’s perfectly just nature. God’s anger is not like our anger — it doesn’t mean God loses his temper or is ever malicious. As John Stott writes, it is God’s “deeply personal abhorrence of evil… his holy hostility to evil, his refusal to condone it.” Jesus Christ on the cross reveals God’s perfect justice against sin. The wrath we justly deserve fell on him, and all who put their faith in him are justified before God. Yet for those who refuse to receive the righteousness that is by faith, the cross reveals that God’s justice will be carried out against all who are unrighteous.
How Do We Suppress the Truth by Unrighteousness?
Paul says God’s invisible attributes — his eternal power and divine nature — have been clearly perceived by humanity since he created the world, in the very things he made. This whole area of apologetics has always perplexed me, as if the gospel begins with philosophical arguments for God’s existence. God’s word tells us that every person in this world knows God exists. The issue is not knowledge; the issue is the heart. Whether you watch a sunset, gaze at the stars, or study the human body, you comprehend God’s eternal power and divine nature. To think any system of the human body just came together by chance is a suppression of the truth to the largest degree.
What Happens When We Suppress the Truth About God?
When we suppress the truth, we stop honoring God and giving him thanks. Instead we turn toward meaninglessness, where our thinking becomes futile and our hearts darkened. Claiming to be wise, we become fools, and we make the most dishonest exchange: we exalt ourselves and the creation over the God who made it all. As Calvin wrote, “The human heart is an idol factory.”
The Joyous Exchange
Even though all humanity can perceive something about God through nature, our salvation depends on God revealing himself to us in Christ. God sent his only Son that we might have eternal life — an exchange Martin Luther called the “joyous exchange.” Christ came to take our wickedness, unfaithfulness, and unthankfulness, and in exchange he gave us the fullness of God’s righteousness, the hope of eternal life, and the inheritance of his kingdom. Repent and believe, and you will be saved from the wrath of God to eternal life with him forever.
Leave a Reply