When men are puffed up in their own reasoning ...

Dear brothers, welcome to our study concerning homosexuality and the biblical position on this subject. I want to start by directing your attention to verse 1 of Romans chapter 20 where Paul says that: "Because the invisible things of God, His eternal Power and deity become clearly visible from the creation of the world being understood through the things made in such a way that they have no excuse. "

As we saw in the previous segment, nature itself speaks about the Will of God. The psalmist says that: "The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament announces the work of His hands." In other words, he who has eyes to study nature sees a God of love, a generous God, a holy God, a gracious God of justice, coherent, who has principles, who has purpose and who is governed by a very behavior. well planned and very consistent with each other.

We can see many such things in general terms about the character of God through nature. If one studies the work of a great artist, one quickly realizes the artist's personality, his beliefs, even the time in which he lives seeing the creative works of that artist and likewise, when we observe divine creation, we can observe much of God's character.

God has created the world to protect life, God has created the world with well-organized, well-balanced laws. The world is governed by these laws and is made to preserve life. And then we can clearly understand that God's character demands equally holy behavior on the part of His creatures.

Certainly lust, homosexuality, violence, violently, cruelly attacking another human being, neglecting human dignity are not things that reflect God's behavior as manifested by His creation. And therefore we can in a sense at a basic level.

If we did not have the revelation of Scripture we could see many things simply by looking at nature. Paul says that there are men, or rather all of humanity and he is referring above all to those times of idolatry in Rome, in Greece, in the nations and in pagan cultures where gods rather full of lust are presented, gods cruel and arbitrary; gods who assume the forms of snakes, dragons, birds, four-legged animals and Paul says: it is impossible for God to be like that because the God who shows us nature is a beautiful God, a holy God, a God with purpose with a mind thinking, benevolent, merciful, very different from those cruel gods that idolatry presents.

We also know according to biblical doctrine that those supposed gods that idolatry presents us are rather demons and it is clearly seen that the idolatrous character of those idolatrous gods reflects rather a demonic and diabolical behavior.

Paul says that this idolatry, this representation of God using animal forms and forms thus arbitrary and cruel deeply offends the heart of God and that is why God has shown His judgment on humanity, because instead of seeing God as what He truly It is, loving and gentle and consistent have distorted His character and have put it as the opposite, right? impure, cruel, incoherent, unpredictable and that is a violation of divine dignity.

Then Paul says that: "Men, having known God, did not glorify him as God or give thanks to him, but were puffed up in their reasoning and therefore their foolish hearts were darkened." First came the rebellion against God, after that came the trying to make God a corruptible, animal, limited image and after that then comes the wrath of the Lord against a humanity that represents him in a very unjust and wrong way.

Paul says something more interesting and it is that: "Men were puffed up in their own reasoning." Instead of looking towards God and thanking God and humiliating themselves before that holy and perfect God, what they did was that they got into the boxes of their own reasoning as we see today, that what humanity is doing is using science , sociology, psychology, biology and starting from there to make their own moral conclusions and renouncing what the Word of the Lord says and preferring their own moral and ethical conclusions, and that is why God is so offended with the humanity.

And then Paul says that the consequence of this of that attitude that we saw before of impiety and injustice now makes the minds of men, the reasoning of men, darkened, that is, darkened. Then the perception of men instead of being a bright and clear perception becomes a dark perception. The amount of light that human reasoning can shed is now reduced to a minimum because God has set them apart and abandoned them, and his light that he has to analyze the world is a very, very poor light.

And that makes these people, these scientists, these sociologists, these philosophers, although they profess to be wise, verse 22 says, they actually become fools and see God through a very imperfect and deficient lens. That is the terrible diagnosis that the Apostle Paul makes of a blind humanity, inveterate resisting the glory of God that now has a mind that is functioning in a tremendously deficient way.

In our next study we will continue with this analysis made by the Apostle Paul about homosexuality. May the Lord bless you and may His Grace be with all of us.