JETS 58:1 (March 2015)

Editorial

The rapid erosion in recent years of the biblical understanding of marriage and gender identity in the West has been alarming. Believers are starkly confronted with the realization that living out God’s plan for marriage in today’s world is increasingly countercultural. Western civilization is in a steep moral decline. Parallels with ancient Roman culture, and Paul’s words in his letter to the Romans, are palpable.

“So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome,” the apostle writes. “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes ….” (Rom 1:16). As the apostle proceeds to point out, his proclamation of the gospel takes place against the dark backdrop of a rapidly degenerating culture: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth” (v. 18).

“Ignorance is no excuse,” the saying goes. But in this case, people aren’t ignorant of the Creator and his divine design: “For what can be known about God is plain to them … 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” (vv. 19–20). While knowing God, people don’t honor him as such: “Claiming to be wise, they became fools” (v. 22).

According to Paul’s cultural analysis, all moral decay is rooted in creatures’ rebellion against their Creator. This rebellion, in turn, takes place despite the manifest revelation of God and his creative purposes. “His invisible attributes have been clearly perceived … in the things that have been made.” This renders humans who reject God’s revelation not only without excuse at the final judgment; it also causes them to be futile in their thinking and foolish in their choices and actions in the here and now.

Paul goes on to elaborate on the way in which God’s rebellious creatures “did not honor him as God or give thanks to him” but are “dishonoring their bodies” by indulging in “dishonorable passions.” His indictment of rebellious humanity, triggered by his reflection on first-century Greco-Roman society, issues in the threefold refrain, “God gave them up … God gave them up … God gave them up ….”

“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, who is blessed forever! Amen” (vv. 24–25).

And again: “For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and

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the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error” (vv. ...