This study picks up where “The Gospel Before the Wrath” leaves off — that piece establishes what Paul says about the gospel itself in Romans 1:1–17, before he ever turns to diagnose the unbeliever. This is a companion study as well to “Without God in the World” — that piece traces how the apostles addressed the gospel differently depending on the hearer standing before them; this one establishes what Romans 1 says is actually true of that hearer before a word is spoken to him.
There is a way of speaking about the unbeliever that has become common in evangelistic circles, and it is wrong in two directions at once. It treats him as an innocent who simply hasn’t heard — as though the gospel is news arriving to a blank slate. And it treats his darkness as a private, gradual decline — a man dimming his own light over the course of a lifetime, as though given a longer life or a gentler upbringing he might have turned out otherwise. Romans 1 will permit neither error. The man without God in the world is not innocent. And the darkness that now defines him was never his biography to begin with. Untangling these two claims — real guilt, and real incapacity, resting on a fall that is corporate rather than personal — is where any faithful ministry to the unbeliever has to begin.
He is not ignorant. He is guilty.
Romans 1:18 opens not with mercy but with wrath: “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness.” The very next verse tells you why the wrath is just — “because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them” (1:19). Verse 20 goes further: His eternal power and Godhead are “clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, so that they are without excuse.”
This is the first thing that must not be softened when the unbeliever’s condition is described. He is not an innocent who simply hasn’t heard. He has already received a testimony — creation itself — sufficient to leave him without excuse. Whatever else is true of his condition, ignorance is not his defense. Paul will not permit it as one.
The knowledge was suppressed, not absent.
Verse 21 tells you what he did with what he had: “because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.” This is not a man groping toward God and falling short. This is a man who had light and turned from it — deliberately, culpably. What follows in verses 22–32 — the exchange of God’s glory for images, the exchange of truth for a lie, the downward cascade into degrading passions and a reprobate mind — all of it is described as God’s judicial response to that suppression: “God also gave them up” (1:24, 26, 28), three times. The darkness he now stands in is not a starting condition. It is a sentence already being executed.
One caution here, because it is easy to mistake this passage for something it is not. “Their foolish heart was darkened” is not a description of an individual life — not a man born with some capacity for light who dims it gradually through his own choices as he matures. The language is representative and historical, not biographical. “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man” (1:22–23) gathers up the larger biblical pattern of human revolt. The exchange of glory for an image finds its closest verbal echo not in Genesis 3 itself but in Israel’s own history of idolatry, described in almost identical terms — “they changed their glory into the similitude of an ox that eateth grass” (Psalm 106:20), and “my people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit” (Jeremiah 2:11). Paul is tracing a pattern that runs from Adam’s original revolt, through the nations’ idolatry, into Israel’s own repeated failure — the same kind of corporate statement as “by one man sin entered into the world” (Romans 5:12). It is not the biography of any particular man ministered to today. He was not born innocent and did not personally re-enact this decline from some starting point of light. He was born already dark, already condemned, already an heir of the very exchange this passage narrates — “in sin did my mother conceive me” (Psalm 51:5), “by nature the children of wrath” (Ephesians 2:3). Romans 1:21–23 tells how the race came to be in this state. Total depravity tells what every individual already inherits from it the moment he is born. The unbeliever is not partway down a slope he is personally descending — he is already standing at the bottom of a fall that occurred in Adam and was re-enacted by the nations, and he arrived there by inheritance, not by gradual erosion within his own lifetime.
None of this makes him a passive inheritor only. He did not create the fallen condition into which he was born, but neither does he stand inside it innocently. Born into Adam’s darkness, he personally repeats the race’s refusal every time he withholds from God the honor and thanksgiving creation’s testimony still requires of him. The inherited condition explains why he does not come to God on his own. It does not excuse the suppression he continues to enact himself.
And yet he cannot see rightly, or move Godward, on his own.
Here the chapter must be read alongside the rest of Paul’s diagnosis, or the man in front of you will be misjudged in the other direction. Ephesians 2:1 calls him dead in trespasses and sins. Ephesians 4:18 says his understanding is darkened, his heart hardened. Titus 1:15 says his mind and conscience are defiled. Scripture elsewhere shows that a conscience can be seared past feeling through continued, willful rebellion — 1 Timothy 4:2 describes false teachers whose consciences have reached exactly this state, cauterized by long practice until they barely register what they once felt keenly. The general unbeliever’s conscience need not have gone that far to still be defiled and unreliable rather than trustworthy.
Both of these must be held without collapsing either one into the other. His conscience still bears some witness — Romans 2:15 says Gentile conscience “bears witness,” accusing or excusing, sufficient again to condemn — but that witness is not the same as spiritual life, and it cannot reconcile him to God any more than a smoke detector can put out the fire it warns of. He is dead Godward: unable to do what would please God (Romans 8:7–8), unable to receive spiritual truth as spiritual truth because the very faculties by which he hears and reasons are themselves darkened, and require the Spirit’s renewing work before they can discern what is spiritually discerned (1 Corinthians 2:14). His guilt, his inherited corruption, and his consequent inability must all be held together. His inability does not excuse his rebellion, and his guilt does not mean he retains the power to heal the nature from which that rebellion proceeds. Together they are exactly what makes his rescue an act of sovereign grace rather than an achievement he simply hasn’t gotten around to.
This is a different condition than Israel’s, and it changes how he must be addressed.
Everything above describes the man who is, as Paul puts it elsewhere, “without Christ… having no hope, and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12) — atheoi: without God. The rest of that verse — no covenant, no commonwealth, no promise — belongs to the wider description Paul gives in that sentence, not to the word atheoi itself; but taken together, the verse leaves this man with nothing of Israel’s covenant standing to his name. This is not the condition of a Jew who had the law, knew the covenant, and turned from it. That man’s category is different: Israel can be summoned back — shuv, to turn back or return — because there was a Mosaic covenant already given to Israel, and already broken by Israel. That is why Peter can say to Israel, without preamble, “this Jesus, whom ye have crucified” (Acts 2:36) — the charge presumes a covenant relationship Israel already had and violated.
The Gentile has no Mosaic covenant to which he can be summoned back. That does not mean he stands in no relationship to God at all — the first section of this study has already shown that he does, through creation, and that he has violated it. What he lacks is not a relationship but a covenant: he has never possessed the commonwealth, the promises, or the law entrusted to Israel. He must therefore be introduced to the God he has refused to honor, and brought, through the gospel, into a covenant fellowship he has never before possessed. That is why Paul, before Gentile hearers, does not open with an accusation of covenant-breaking the way Peter does with Israel — he opens by establishing who God even is (Acts 17:24–29) before he ever calls for repentance. Both men are guilty. Neither is innocent. But one is a covenant-breaker being summoned back to a covenant he broke, and the other is a covenant-stranger being brought near for the first time — and collapsing that difference, treating the Gentile as though he merely needs to turn back to a covenant he never held, will produce confusion in him, not conviction.
The wrath in view is present, not only future.
Notice the tense in verse 18: the wrath “is revealed” — present, ongoing, already operating through the very handing-over described in the verses that follow. This is not only a warning of a coming day, though that day is certainly in view elsewhere in Paul. It is a description of a condition already abiding on the unbeliever now — he does not merely risk wrath, he currently abides under it, exactly as John says: “he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:36). This is why the gospel cannot be offered to him as an improvement or an addition to a life otherwise neutral. He is not neutral. He is under a sentence already in force, and what he needs is not encouragement but rescue.
What alone can give him life.
None of this — creation’s testimony, his suppression of it, his deadness, the wrath already abiding — is reversed by anything said to him directly. Paul has already given the remedy, in the verse that stands just before all of this: “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth” (Romans 1:16). The gospel is not merely information added to a man who lacks data. It is power brought to a man who is dead. The same Spirit who opened Lydia’s heart to attend to what Paul spoke (Acts 16:14), who fell on the Gentiles at Cornelius’s house before any of them had done a single thing to secure it, is the only one who crosses the distance Romans 1 describes. The task of the one who preaches is to proclaim the whole of what Paul proclaims here — the true God, the suppressed knowledge, the abiding wrath, the crucified and risen Christ who alone answers it — and to leave the piercing of the heart to the one who alone can pierce it.
In short: the man without God in the world is not an innocent bystander waiting for good news he has never heard. He is a suppressor of light already given, judged in that suppression by being given over to it, dead in his capacity to reverse it by inheritance from a fall that is corporate and historical rather than personal and gradual, and under a wrath already abiding rather than merely threatened. He cannot be summoned back to a covenant he never held — he can only be brought, for the first time, into the covenant fellowship he has never possessed, face to face with the very God whose testimony in creation he has spent his life suppressing — and only the Spirit, not the preacher’s skill, will make him see it.
Paul writes in Galatians 1:16 that the Son was revealed IN him. Christ did not enter into Paul upon His confession but the Life of the Saviour was found in the man waiting to be acknowledged and surrendered to.
David, thank you for commenting.
Galatians 1:16 certainly speaks of God revealing His Son in Paul, but I do not see where the verse says that Christ’s life was already resident in the unconverted Saul, merely awaiting acknowledgment. That appears to be an assumption brought to the text rather than one drawn from it.
So I would genuinely like to understand your position. Do you believe the Life of Christ was already dwelling in Saul while he was persecuting the church? If so, how do you reconcile that with Paul’s own description of us as “dead in trespasses and sins,” before God “hath quickened us together with Christ” (Ephesians 2:1, 5)?
I am asking sincerely, because the answer reaches far beyond Galatians 1:16.
I take all of your comments as sincere friend because there are given in Love. I have spent a lot of time meditating on this verse, but not settled it in my heart. I am definitely not talking about predestination as in Calvanism although I believe, as you have taught, that the Apostles were called of God and He being outside of time “separarated Paul from his mother’s womb.” The word that I am stuck on is “apokalupto” (verse 16) which means to “reveal” something that was present, but not seen or perceived. I guess what I am saying is that Paul almost infers that Christ was calling to Paul while he was persecuting the Way and he almost sounds surprised to “find” the Lord in him after he is confronted on the road to Emmaus. I hope I am communicating this properly. There is a reason why the Lord won’t let us get past certain verses. It very well be because I needed your help:) I am convinced that although Paul in one sense or another was “kicking against the pricks” he felt that he was doing God service. Thank you for challenging me on these scriptures and comments. I very much covet them.
David, I take it the same way — and I appreciate you saying so plainly. This kind of wrestling, done honestly, is exactly what these texts are for.
On apokalyptō, I think you’ve actually pointed at something more specific and more interesting than a general word-study can show, so let me answer it directly rather than broadly. Paul uses this same word, and the noun that goes with it, for one particular thing across his letters: the mystery. “By revelation he made known unto me the mystery… which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit” (Ephesians 3:3–5). “The revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began… made known to all nations for the obedience of faith” (Romans 16:25–26). “The mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints” (Colossians 1:26).
That pattern runs in four stages, and it’s worth laying out plainly: hidden in God’s eternal purpose — faintly anticipated in Scripture, though not disclosed in its fullness (the Old Testament genuinely promises Gentile blessing, but pictures the nations gathered to Zion, not Jew and Gentile made one new man with the dividing wall entirely gone — that specific shape of it is what Paul says was actually hidden, not merely under-noticed) — unveiled in Christ — revealed by the Spirit through the apostles.
Galatians 1:16 is that same event, in shorthand, and the verse itself tells you so: “to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen.” That’s not incidental phrasing. That’s Paul describing the very mystery he unpacks at length elsewhere — God’s long-hidden purpose for the Gentiles, disclosed to Paul specifically so he could carry it to them. The mystery hidden was a purpose and a reality about Christ, existing in God’s eternal counsel, entirely independent of Paul — not a presence secretly resident in the persecutor, waiting on him to notice it.
One exegetical safeguard worth naming, since Colossians actually could be read your way if it’s lifted out of order: that same letter goes on to say the mystery “is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (1:27) — but notice who that’s said of. That’s the indwelling reality given to the saints, the church, once the gospel has actually reached them and they’ve believed it. It isn’t a claim that this indwelling was already true of Paul while he was persecuting the church before any of that had happened. The mystery being unveiled to Paul, and Christ coming to dwell in Paul, are two different moments — revelation first, then indwelling as its fruit, not indwelling all along waiting to be found.
Two small things, offered gently since you’ve been so careful with the text: the confrontation was on the road to Damascus (Acts 9), not Emmaus — Emmaus is the unrelated appearance to the two disciples after the resurrection in Luke 24. And “kicking against the pricks… doing God service” (Acts 26:9, 14) is exactly right as a description of Paul’s state — but I don’t think it settles the question either way.
A man can be entirely sincere, zealous, and convinced he’s serving God, and still be wrong about the very thing he’s most sure of — Paul says this of Israel too: zeal ‘not according to knowledge’ (Romans 10:2–3). His sincerity was real. It just wasn’t the same thing as sight. That’s the gap this passage keeps insisting on, and it’s the same gap I think your reading is trying to close a little too early.
Grateful for how carefully you’re sitting with this rather than rushing past it. That’s rare, and it’s a gift to the conversation.
I could not come up with a word that defined my misunderstanding of Gal 1:16 so I had asked “Google” to help me. Explication. “the detailed, methodical process of unpacking and analyzing a complex text, idea, or concept to reveal its hidden layers of meaning. It goes beyond a simple summary by breaking down structure, context, and stylistic devices.” I knew that Christ is not “formed” in us before we have called upon Him in sincerity, but because I have struggled to understand Gal 1:16 I rushed to a conclusion that which was not well thought out or prayed into. I yearn to learn more about Him so I can understand, love and serve Him and encourage those I come into contact with everyday. Your response to my comment is wonderful and well received. Even before I read it and was meditating on the Gal 1:16 the Lord spoke to me, “the mystery.” I believe that it was one other teaching that you have posted that talked about the “mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints:.” There is one sentence that you wrote in response to me that reads, “not Jew and Gentile made one new man with the dividing wall entirely gone.” I have, from the beginning, struggled with the question, “how did we (the Ecclesia) get here?” The Jews struggled so much to accept the entirety of the Grace which was given to the world and there was such a reluctance to open their hearts to the newly forming Gentile church. I understand that Israel has been made given the spirit of sleep until the fullness of the Gentiles “be come in,” but the two races, Jew and Gentile, from the beginning were divided and quickly became enemies of one another. Then the Gentiles who were under a constant barrage of attacks from false apostles, prophets and influencers and began, almost immediately after the deaths of the Apostles to veer from doctrine Paul and the others had worked so hard to establish. THAT is another mystery that I have been studying and reading and meditating on that I can not understand. So much to learn, there is never enough time to learn it all:) Thank you…again…for your patient and thoughful response. I can not express to you how grateful I am for your kindness and wisdom.
David, thank you for this. Looking up a word, sitting with where you’d rushed, and saying so plainly — that’s not a small thing, and I don’t take it lightly that you did it.
What you’re describing about “the mystery” being spoken to you before you’d even read my reply is a beautiful thing to notice. I won’t pretend to certify what only you and the Lord know between yourselves, but I can say the timing you’re describing is exactly the kind of thing worth paying attention to and giving thanks for.
On how we — the Ecclesia — actually got here: I don’t think this was a slow social thaw between two peoples who gradually warmed to each other. Paul says the wall came down at a specific point, and it was already finished before the church ever had to work it out in practice: “For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us… to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace” (Ephesians 2:14, 15). That’s a legal, accomplished reality at the cross itself, not a trend the early church slowly arrived at. What you see unfolding in Acts — Cornelius’s household in Acts 10, the argument settled at the Jerusalem council in Acts 15 — isn’t the wall coming down. It’s the church discovering, often haltingly and with real reluctance on all sides, a wall that had already fallen. And you already have the other half of this exactly right: Israel’s partial hardening “until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in” (Romans 11:25) isn’t a contradiction of that finished unity. It’s the same accomplished reality unfolding across history rather than completing all at once.
The second mystery you’re carrying — how the drift away from apostolic doctrine happened so quickly after the apostles died — is a real and much bigger question, and I don’t want to give it less than it deserves by rushing an answer in a comment. What I can say now: it wasn’t a surprise to the apostles themselves. Paul told the Ephesian elders directly, to their faces, years before it happened: “I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them” (Acts 20:29–30). The drift wasn’t a failure of what Paul and the others built. He predicted it plainly, by name, to the very churches most likely to face it. That’s a real answer, but only a partial one — the fuller history of how it actually unfolded is worth its own study someday, not something I want to compress here.
Grateful for how much you’re carrying and still bringing back to the text rather than setting it down. That’s rare, and it’s a gift every time you do it.
What a brilliant explanation. I have always thought of the passage that mentions the blindness of Israel “until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in” as a blindness that came upon Israel after the Apostolic age. That is why I have had such difficulty understanding the reluctance of the early Jewish Christians to accept the Gentile converts and expect them to submit to the Law of Moses. SO many have used the example of the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem to justify the ritualistic observance of the Law along with the message of Grace. The truth is that the ‘blindness” fell early on which explains the need for Paul’s ministry, Peter’s double-mindedness that Paul called him out on in Gal 2, and the fierce debate over the issue of Gentile converts in Acts 15. I believe that had it not been for Peter’s influence in Acts 15 it may have ended differently. The fact that Peter was not reportedly present during the Acts 21 meeting between Paul and James also explains what I feel this chapter records as a cold reception by James when Paul’s ministry was again called into question. My heart grieves for the Jewish people who, for the sake of the Gentiles, had to endure this awful period of blindness in order for the Gentile church to be formed. Oh, what immeasurable wisdom, kindness and Love that our Lord had displayed for us to accomplish His plans for us all. Thank you again for sharing this with me. David
David,
The hardening had already begun in the apostolic age — that’s why Acts records real tension over Gentile inclusion, why Paul confronted Peter in Galatians 2, and why Acts 15 was a genuine fight, not a formality.
Your observation about Peter’s absence in Acts 21 is an interesting one. Scripture doesn’t tell us why he wasn’t there, but it certainly makes that meeting worth reading carefully alongside Acts 15 and Galatians 2.
What grieves you is right to grieve. But God’s wisdom has the final word, not the blindness. Israel’s stumbling was never their forfeiture — it became the means by which salvation came to the Gentiles. Their fullness is still coming.
Thank you, David — the Lord alone deserves the praise for opening His Word to us.