Now that we viewed the nature of sin as unbelief, pride, and disobedience, we come to a consideration of the effects or results of sin. Here I will discuss, in order: futility of mind and action; guilt and punishment; then separation, es- trangement, and bondage.
I. FUTILITY OF MIND AND ACTION
We continue briefly with the Genesis narrative of man and woman in the Garden of Eden. The lie of the serpent (“Your eyes will be opened” [3:5]) promised a knowledge beyond what God had given to man in his creation, and the woman interpreted this to be a higher wisdom (“The tree was to be desired to make one wise” [3:6]). So it was that both the man and the woman ate the forbidden fruit. “Then the eyes of both were opened,” but the results were scarcely what they had contem-
plated: “They knew that they were naked” (3:7).
It is apparent that the thoughts of Adam and Eve were no longer of God, nor even of being like Him; and their actions after that demonstrate increas- ing confusion of mind. The man and the woman made aprons of fig leaves to cover their nakedness; they sought to hide themselves from God; they tried to avoid His direct questioning about their sinful deed (3:7-13). None of this makes good sense: they were operating out of a mind that had become vain and futile in its thinking-and to this their actions corresponded.
Here we may return to Paul and his words in Romans. Just following the statement concerning mankind in gen- eral that “although they knew God they did not glorify’ him as God or give thanks to him,” Paul writes, “They became futile in their thinking2 and
I “Glorify” is the NASB translation in the margin. Cf. NIV: “neither glorified him”; KJV:
“glorified him not.”
2The NASB reads, “futile in their speculations”; KJV has “vain in their imaginations.” The Greek expression is ematai&h&an en tois dialogismois, which could also be rendered
“empty in their reasonings.” According to Thayer, Romans 1:21 relates “to the reasoning of those who think themselves to be wise” (see under dialogismos).
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their senseless’ minds” were darkened. self-elevation),7 but it is apparent in the Claiming to be wise, they became history of mankind at large. The people fools” (1:21-22). In relation to the of Israel are the outstanding example, things of God because of sin, there is for, while God was giving the Ten only futility, darkness, and folly. Commandments and various ordinances It is a sad fact that the human race in to Moses, they made and worshiped a turning from God through sin is plunged golden calf (Exod. 32:1-6)-a “four- into confusion and darkness. There are footed animal.” Thus they “exchanged vast numbers of people today who, the glory of the incorruptible God,”
seeking to forget God in their pursuit of which they had beheld at Mount Sinai, every kind of human interest, become for an idol.* How “futile” their think- greatly confused about life and its ing, how “senseless” their action! Yet meaning. Most would not claim to be such was repeated again and again after atheists, but, for all practical purposes, Israel entered the Promised Land, for the basic tenor of their lives is away before long they were engaged in one from God to the things of the world. act of idolatry after another. What They hide themselves-or seek to do Israel did was to participate in the so-in a multiplicity of human pur- universal idolatry of mankind, but all suits.5 Such, however, is futile, for God the more egregiously because she had is always there and cannot really be been given the divine commandments:
shut out.6 S i n b l i n d s - a n d i n t h a t “You shall have no other gods before blindness, in which God seems to be me” and “You shall not make for less than real, perhaps even nonexis- yourself a graven image, or any likeness tent, people often attempt the foolish, of anything . . . ” (Exod. 20:3-4). Truly
the impossible. they “became fools.”
As a result idolatry becomes the Now let us view idolatry in the world prevailing condition of mankind. Paul today. There is, to be sure, much continues, after the words “they be- paganism in which idols are the focal came fools” (1:22), thus: “and ex- point of worship. There is also within changed the glory of the incorruptible Christendom itself the semi-idolatry of God for an image in the form of corrupt- “graven images” and “likenesses” in ible man and of birds and four-footed various forms of worship.9 However, animals and crawling creatures” (Rom. the prevalent idolatry, particularly in 1:23 NASB). Now, of course, this did not Western culture, is not that of literal happen immediately with the first man idols fashioned like men and women or and woman (although idolatry was animals but such idols as mammon, implicitly present in their attempted pleasure, power, success, knowledge,
3Or “foolish” (NIV, NASB); the Greek word is asynetos.
4The Greek word is kardia, often meaning “heart”; so KJV, NIV. and NASB translate.
However, kardiu may also signify “the faculty of thought, of the thoughts themselves, of understanding” (BAGD). The NEB vigorously translates: “Their misguided minds are plunged in darkness.”
SFor example, in pseudo-sophistication, constant busyness, or an incessant search for pleasure.
“We may recall again Francis Thompson’s poem “The Hound of Heaven”; see page 48, fn. 3.
‘See my prior discussion in chapter IO, III, B, under “Pride.”
HCf. Psalm 106: 19-20: “They made a calf in Horeb and worshiped a molten image. They exchanged the glory of God for the image of an ox that eats grass.”
YParticularly in many of the more liturgical traditions.
246 .,, -_ . -
and fame.10 Whenever anything other than God Himself becomes the chief end in life, an idol (or idols) takes over.
In the long run the result is futility about life, for idols serve only to de- stroy.” In all the actions of people there may be the pretense of knowing what they are about; yet, in the words of Paul again, they have become
“fools.” For actually they are on the way to destruction.
We might single out for particular attention the idol of wisdom or knowl- edge. This idol is suggested in the words of Paul: “Claiming to be wise, they became fools” (Rom. 1:22). When God is no longer truly glorified and given thanks and as a result the true knowledge of Him fades, there is then the tendency to seek after worldly wis- dom. Such a search may follow upon a long period of pagan idolatry (i.e., lit- eral worship of idols, polytheism), as, for example, in Greek culture in which the wisdom of the philosopher became the ultimate way of truth. “God” may even be included in the realm of philo- sophical thought, but as an intellectual concept and not as a living reality.
Moreover, such concepts or ideas of God from Greek philosophy to the present day are as diverse and multiple and often as contradictory to one an- other as the times and cultures each
‘1‘11E fif;FIiCl‘S c)f‘ Slh philosopher represents.12 There is, however, no agreement, no consensus.
Paul puts it quite bluntly: “The world by wisdom knew not God” (1 Cor. 1:2 1
KJV);'~ hence all the talk about God means absolutely nothing in terms of genuine knowledge. The “god” of phi- losophy is an abstraction devised from the world, and the wisdom that is embraced as the ultimate way to truth is foolishness: “Claiming to be wise, they became fools. ” In another place Paul warns, “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world. . . .” (Col. 2:8 NI~).‘~ Captivity to philosophy is captivity to deception:
it is the way of worldly wisdom that leads, not to God, but to confusion.
Wisdom has become an idol; knowl- edge, a fetish: both lead to vanity and nothing.15 To make an idol of them is futility and senselessness.
Significantly, the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have marked an increasing departure from God through the thought of such men as Karl Marx, Charles Darwin, and Sigmund Freud.
The thought world of political revolu- tion, of evolutionary science, of psy- chological analysis all served to view God, at best, as expendable, but more often as a liability. Thus atheism has lOSee my work The Ten Commandments, “The First Commandment,” 5-9, where 1 speak of the “other gods” as Possessions, Pleasure, Prestige, and Power.
11 Cf. Hosea 8:4- “ With their silver and gold they made idols for their own destruction.”
See also Herbert Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction, in which the author discusses idols of history, humanity, mammon, nature, power, and religion (chaps. l-6).
‘*Charles Hartshome and William L. Reese, eds., Philosophers Speak ofGod, contains a helpful compilation of classical and modern views of God (from Plato and Aristotle to Whitehead and Wieman). The concepts run the full range from theism to pantheism, with many shades in between.
r3Paul is speaking generally, but also he particularly says of the Greeks that they “seek after wisdom” (1 Cor. I:22 KJV).
r4Als0, cf. Paul’s words to Timothy: “0 Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you.
Avoid the godless chatter and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge” (I Tim.
6:20).
ISThe full range of philosophy also includes skepticism and atheism (e.g., in recent philosophy: Hume, Feuerbach, and Nietzsche). The tendency to nihilism seems implicit within the wisdom of the world.
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become the compelling philosophy in all such systems of thought. Marxist com- munism has represented the most bla- tant form of atheism, for in this system there is the avowed intent to remove God from every arena of life. Any belief in God is viewed as debarring concen- tration on man in his economic needs.
“Law, morality, religion are . . . so many bourgeois prejudices.“16 So God as a “bourgeois prejudice” must be totally set aside for the working class to arise and win the world.
Now when we say that Marxist phi- losophy in its denial of God represents
“futility of mind, ” this, of course, does not mean that there is no power or significance in it. Indeed, the fact that communism is now the dominant politi- co-economic force in much of the world shows that it has engaged the loyalty and hopes of millions of people. Fur- ther, Marxism has recognized that re- ligion may be “the opiate of the peo- ple,” lulling them with hopes of heaven and producing complacency about earthly conditions.17 Nonetheless-and this is the crucial point-there is futility of thought at the vital center of Marx- ism, namely, in viewing the human need as basically economic (e.g., the “class- less society,” collective ownership of all goods). But here the Scriptures speak: “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4
N I V). Ix When an economic concern iS
viewed as the basic need in society and God is neglected or, worse still, ruled out, then whatever economic shifts there may be, for better or worse, there is abject failure. “Bread alone” cannot suffice: man’s working conditions may be ideal, but his life is vain and empty without God and His word. Marxist philosophy ultimately therefore is also
“futility of mind.”
I should add some word about the rapid increase of secular humanism in the twentieth century. By “secularism”
we mean various views of human exist- ence that have no place for God. “Sec- ular,” by definition, excludes the sa- cred, and “humanism” signifies that the object of concern is humanity.19 Marx- ism, as discussed, is one potent exam- ple; however, especially on the Ameri- can scene, even more pervasive is the ever-increasing force of other forms of secular humanism such as evolutionary humanism, pragmatic humanism, psy- chological (behavioral) humanism, and cultural humanism.20 All together they make up a composite of humanism that has become increasingly vocal and ag- gressive.
As illustrations of the above, I will mention the two “Humanist Manifes- tos,” appearing in 1933 and the other in 1973, setting forth the views of a wide range of secular humanists.2’ The first 16A statement in Marx’s Communist Manifesto (1848).
171 say “may be” in this sentence. True religion- i.e., Christianity- provides the proper balance between “hopes of heaven” and justice on earth.
‘*These are Jesus’ words, quoting Deuteronomy 8:3.
I9The word humanism has not always meant an exclusive preoccupation with man. There is a long tradition of so-called Christian humanism that seeks to uphold both true Christian
faith and genuine human values. (See e.g., Joseph M. Shaw, ed., Reudings in Christian Humanism.) However, humanism has in our time become more and more identified with secular humanism. Hence, in what follows I will often use the word “humanism” to signify
“secular humanism.”
2”These forms are illustrated, for example, in Julian Huxley (evolutionary), John Dewey (oraamatic). B. F. Skinner (behavioral), and Corliss Lamont (cultural). See Norman L.
dei;er, Is’ Man rhe Meusure? for an elaboration of these and other humanistic positions.
2 I See Humanist MunifPstos I & It, ed. by Paul Kurtz. Signers have included Dewey (H.M. I), Skinner, and Lamont (H.M. Ifi.
manifesto contains fifteen affirmations, the first being “Religious22 humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created.” There is no mention of God throughout; rather, the whole con- cern is “the complete realization of human personality.“23 The second manifesto in its preface declares, “As in 1933, humanists still believe that tradi- tional theism, especially faith in the prayer-hearing God, assumed to love and care for persons and understand their prayers, and to be able to do something about them, is an unproved and outmoded faith.” A few other state- ments: “As nontheists, we begin with humans not God, nature not deity.”
“We can discover no divine purpose or providence for the human species.”
“No deity will save us; we must save ourselves.” “ Ethics is autonomous and situational, needing no theological or ideological sanction.” “Reason and in- telligence are the most effective instru- ments that mankind possesses. There is no substitute; neither faith nor passion suffices in itself.“24 In this melange of statements in the two “Humanist Mani- festos” it is apparent that God has been eclipsed by a concentration on the world and man: there is no creation by God, no One to whom prayer may be offered, no divine purpose or prov- idence, no deity to save man, and there are no God-given ethical norms. Faith is insufficient and misleading; there is only reason and intelligence to guide.
What can we say to all this? Our answer must be that such humanistic thinking is again an exercise in futility.
It represents the deliberate attempt to exclude God and thereby make man the center and measure of all things. Such thinking, such reasoning (which human- ists acclaim so highly as “reason” and
“intelligence”) has therefore become futile.
To say that the universe is “self- existing” is sheer nonsense; to “begin with humans not God” is the total opposite of the way to truth; to claim to be wnable to discover “divine purpose or providence” betrays a turning from God and His word, making such discov- ery impossible; to say that we must
“save ourselves” is a Promethean self- contradiction, since salvation by definition must come from outside and beyond the self; to claim that ethics is
“autonomous and situational” is ab- surd in light of the inner law written on every person’s heart. All of this is
“futility in thinking,” the result of the darkening of “senseless minds.”
Why has humanism gone this way?
The answer simply is that God is miss- ing. To quote Paul again, in words also applicable to humanists: “They did not glorify him as God or give thanks to him.” And because they do neither, God has become less and less real and man inevitably the center of their con- cern. But since their philosophy is a vast distortion of reality (not dissimilar to the outmoded and distant view of the earth being the center of the universe and all things revolving around it), all such thinking about both God and man has become empty and vain.
One thing further: every God-deny- ing philosophy, ideology, or attitude runs counter to the actual human situa- tion. Man is so made by God that at every moment he is encountered by Him and is responsible to Him. To deny God, accordingly, is to close one’s eyes to reality and to run from truth. It is actually to suppress the truth. Let us look back again to Paul’s words in Romans 1 that led up to his declaration 22The word religious drops out of the second manifesto.
23 H.M. I, Eighth affirmation.
24H.M. II. Quotations from the opening sections of “Religion” and “Ethics.” Italics are those of the document itself.
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itbout futility. Paul begins with a state- ment about how God’s wrath is re- vealed in its opposition to those who
“by their wickedness suppress the truth” (v. 18). Then Paul explains:
“For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without ex- cuse” (vv. 19-20). Then Paul adds (as previously quoted): “For although they knew God they did not glorify him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking . . . ” (v.
21). The whole picture is one of sup- pression of truth and denial of God’s own self-disclosure, shutting the eyes to His manifestation through the created world. Hence, when today-or at any time in history-people proclaim the nonexistence of God, they are without excuse; they are actually denying the evidence that constantly confronts them. Is it any wonder that their think- ing becomes futile, nonsensical? If only they would but glorify and thank Him- give honor to the Creator-all things would come back into focus again! But until then, they only continue to move away into more and more folly. Thus these devastating words of Paul:
“Claiming to be wise, they became fools” (v. 22).
But now we move on to observe that idolatry is followed by all kinds of immoral actions. It is significant that Paul, after speaking of idolatry (Rom.
1:23), next declares, “Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie
and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator” (vv. 24-25).
The worship and service of the crea- ture, whether through literal or spiritual idolatry (i.e., making man the center of all things- a lying phantasy) results in God’s delivering people over to the perversions of the flesh. When people do not truly honor God, honor of one another rapidly degenerates into dis- honor. Perverseness toward God (aban- doning Him for a lie) leads to God’s abandonment of people and to their perversion with one another.
It is striking that before Paul comes to dealing with such evils as murder, strife, covetousness, slander, and heart- lessness (1:29-31)-all of which are contrary to God’s word in the Ten Commandments and the teaching of Jesus-he focuses at length on the matter of sexual perversion. We quote in part: “For this reason [i.e., serving the creature rather than the Creator]
God gave them up to dishonorable passions.*’ Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another . . . since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a base*6 mind and to improper conduct” (vv. 26-28).
It is quite significant that futility of mind not only includes a gross distor- tion about God-that man is to be worshiped and served rather than the Creator-but also generates a gross distortion in human sexuality. I have previously discussed27 how people, male and female, are set by God in a beautiful and symmetrical relationship first to Himself and then to each other.
Indeed, we might add that the very coming together of man and woman as
“one flesh” is a kind of parallel to the ITThe Greek phrase is putha afimius, “vile affections” (K J V) .
2”Or “depraved” (N I V. NASB. NEB), “reprobate” (K J V). The Greek word is adokimon.
?7In chapter 9, “Man,” pp. 203-6.
spiritual relationship of man with his Maker.28 When that spiritual relation- ship is distorted, distortion may set in on the human level. The “natural”
toward God, which is fellowship with Him, is changed to the “unnatural,”
namely, idolatry; the natural toward one another becomes the unnatural- namely, sexual perversion.
the obverse of idolatry, an unnatural relation with God, is homosexuality, an unnatural relation among men.
Here we must be quick to add that Paul is not saying that this condition of perversion immediately occurs. “God gave them up” has been called “judicial abandonment” by God, with the result that by their very idolatrous practices the way is paved for them to become sexually perverted.
This connection of perversion with idolatry is shown in the Old Testament, for example, when the people of Judah
“built for themselves high places, and pillars, and Asherim29 on every high hill and under every green tree; and there were also male cult prostitutes in the land” (1 Kings 14:23-24).30 Such “cult [or “shrine” N I V] prostitutes” were at the service of other males in relation to the worship of the Asherim. There were also female cult prostitutes.31 This cult prostitution was a regular aspect of Canaanite worship with idolatry and homosexuality closely linked. And Isra- el was frequently drawn into it. In any event, all this illustrates the point that
We should add immediately that ho- mosexuality is strongly spoken against in both Old and New Testaments. Long before the Law was given to Israel, Scripture records the vivid story of Sodom and Gomorrah. The male inhab- itants in their perversity attempted to
“know” the two angels (assumed to be men) who visited Lot in Sodom: “Bring them out to us, that we may know32 them” (Gen. 195). God had already heard the “outcry” against the two cities as “great” and that their sin was
“very [“exceedingly” N A S B] g r a v e ” (Gen. 18:20); this was its final abomina- ble proof. The result: “The LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire” (19:24). No other cities were so devastated in the Old Testament-a further mark of the “exceedingly grave” sin that they represented.
Very strong language is used in Le- viticus about homosexuality: “If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomina- tion; they shall be put to death, their blood is upon them” (20:13).33 In Deu- teronomy there is the command: “You must not bring the earnings of a female prostitute or of a male prostitute34 into 28Genesis 2 includes both a beautiful picture of man intimately constituted by the breath of God (v. 7) and made to be intimately “one flesh” as husband and wife (v. 24).
*9Wooden images of a female Canaanite deity.
3OCf. also 1 Kings 15:12; 22:46; 2 Kings 23:7. These passages show kings Asa, Jehoshaphat, and Josiah in turn seeking to get rid of male cult prostitutes. Josiah finally destroyed their houses, which were in the house of the Lord!
“‘For reference to “female cult prostitutes,” see Deuteronomy 23:17.
3*“Have intercourse with” (N E B), “have sex with” (N I V), “have relations with” (N A S B).
The Hebrew word ww?&‘uh from the root y&z’, translated in RSV above (and KJV) as, e.g., in Genesis 4: 1, as “know’ ” (“Adam knew his wife, and she conceived”), unmistakably means “to have sexual relations with.” One can by no means agree with D. S. Bailey’s claim in Homosexuality and the Western Tradition that the sin God punished on this occasion (and also Judges 19:13-20:48) was a breach of hospitality etiquette without sexual overtones.
Such gross misreading of both passages is in keeping with the contemporary attempt by many to remove homosexuality from biblical censure.
33See also Leviticus l&22.
34The Hebrew word is keleb, literally, “a dog.” Reference here is made to both female 251