The Visible Invisible

 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, ¹⁹ since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. ²⁰ For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.~ Romans 1:18-20

So we see that in the gospel the righteousness of God is being revealed. (17).

And now we are told the wrath of God is being revealed. 

Those two things are not unrelated.

God is righteous in all his ways. He is the standard by which righteousness itself is defined.  There is no righteousness apart from Him.

And a God who turns a blind eye to sin is no righteous God.

Think of a system that allows people like Stalin or Hitler to walk away from their deeds with no consequence.  Would that be righteous?

Instinctively we say 'no'.

But then justice must work at every level.

I don't entirely agree with the concept that there are no 'big sins or little sins'.

But on one level all sin is the same,  in this; that it separates us from God.

And without redemption that means eternal separation.

And all have sinned and fallen short of God's glory.

All of us.

What strikes me here is Paul's argument that humanity has suppressed the truth.

It's like;

'You're in denial'

'No I'm not!'

Paul says elsewhere that 'the god of this world has blinded the eyes of the unbelievers'.

So that is a double whammy. 

We suppress the truth,  because we can't face it.
And Satan keeps us in our deception with every trick available.

What really staggers me is that he says God's invisible qualities are clearly seen.
Being understood,  the NKJV has it, by the things that are made.

Now I will not ever argue from a merely scientific basis,  and not without reason (being thoroughly unscientific) but this needs to be said. 

It is not evolution theory that is the enemy of the gospel.  There are ways of understanding and interpreting creation that are compatible with a working understanding of God.

But the Devil is in the detail.

The chief aim of Satan in using man's own 'wisdom against him is to separate the concept of the creator from his creation.

Without God there is no accountability.  There is nothing higher than mankind itself. 

That my friends is how Satan likes it.

Scripture says we innately understand something of the eternal majesty through his creation.

But we suppress that knowledge.

Because,  like Adam and Eve in the Garden,  we are ashamed and afraid of God.

But we needn't be,  if we only understand him.

This wrath accentuates his love.

Listen to what Dr Martyn Lloyd Jones has to say;

You and I must realise that; that before we see the love of God in the cross we must see His wrath. The two things go together and you cannot separate them.  It is only as you have some conception of the depth of His wrath that will understand the depth of His love.  It was God Himself who found the way whereby His own wrath could express itself against sin, and yet the sinner be not destroyed but rather justified,  because His own Son had borne the punishment.

I am so glad that the Holy Spirit opened my eyes to understand this love. And the deception is deep. It still attempts to call me back.  But it calls to me from the wrong side of the Red Sea and I could not cross that sea to return to Egypt if I wanted to. 

This day, 

Or any day, 

Amen.