Deep Dive: Romans 1: When Freedom Means God Lets Go

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Let's dig dive.
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Income and say about the scriptures.
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You know, um, usually when we talk about getting a medical diagnosis, there's this like expectation of absolute precision.
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Right.
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It almost feels like engineering.
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Like you break your arm, the X-ray shows that jagged white line on the screen, and the doctor just points at it with a pen and says, Oh, there it is.
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That's the problem.
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Yeah, it's entirely binary.
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I mean, it's broken or it's not broken.
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Exactly.
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And there is this uh profound comfort in that kind of visibility.
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You know, we desperately want the things that are wrong with us or even wrong with the world to be easily categorized.
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Because if it's easily seen, it's easily fixed.
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Aaron Powell But what happens when the disease isn't, you know, a bacterial infection or a fractured bone?
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Aaron Powell Right.
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When it's deeper.
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Yeah.
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What happens when you step into the world of human nature, morality, theology, suddenly that X-ray machine is just utterly useless.
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Aaron Powell It really is.
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We're looking at a diagnostic landscape that is incredibly murky.
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And honestly, what's worse, the diagnosis we are looking at today claims that the patient isn't just sick, but they are actively willfully hiding the symptoms.
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Aaron Powell, which is pretty much the absolute definition of diagnostic muddy waters.
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It um it completely upends that normal dynamic between the doctor and the patient.
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Aaron Powell It totally does.
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And that brings us to the core of our exploration today.
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So we are going to systematically unpack a highly complex, incredibly layered, and let's be honest, undeniably controversial text.
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Aaron Powell.
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We're looking at a sermon by Elder Michael Tolliver.
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It's titled The Guilt of the Gentile World.
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Aaron Powell And it is an extensive, I mean really granular exploration of the Apostle Paul's writings.
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Right.
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Specifically Romans chapter 1, verses 18 through 32.
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But um, before we get into the heavy theological weeds here, I really want to speak directly to you, the listener, for a second.
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Yeah, this is important.
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Because the source material we are diving into today contains strong politically and culturally charged religious perspectives.
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It deals heavily with modern culture, human sexuality, and you know, the concept of divine wrath.
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Heavy topic.
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Extremely heavy.
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And I want to be crystal clear right at the top.
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The goal of this deep dive is not to endorse or take sides with these viewpoints.
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Right.
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Whether you are coming at this from the political left, the right, if you're a devout believer or just a complete secular skeptic.
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Our job here is to impartially report.
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We want to analyze and help you understand the theological framework, the arguments, and the rhetorical structure contained in this specific original source material.
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Aaron Ross Powell Yeah.
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We are essentially examining the architecture of a very specific, historically significant worldview.
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Aaron Ross Powell Exactly.
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Trevor Burrus Because, you know, to understand how any building stands, you have to look at the foundation, the load-bearing walls, the materials used.
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And you have to do that regardless of whether you personally want to buy the house and live in it.
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Aaron Powell Right.
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You don't have to move in to look at the floor plan.
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Exactly.
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Our goal is just to walk you through the blueprints.
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Aaron Powell Okay, let's unpack this.
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Because regardless of your personal background, understanding this text provides a really profound look into classical Christian theology, especially regarding how human nature, sin, and salvation work.
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The sermon insists that to understand the cure, which, you know, in this context is ultimate salvation, you have to first accurately diagnose the disease.
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Aaron Powell Right.
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And that disease begins with a deeply fascinating claim about how humanity actually interacts with the truth.
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Aaron Powell So let's get into section one.
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What's the central thesis here?
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Aaron Ross Powell So the central thesis of this opening section of Romans, as Colliver presents it, is a severe, almost shocking indictment.
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It posits that the Gentile world And just to clarify, in this context, that means anyone outside the Jewish law.
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Exactly.
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The entire world outside the specific covenant of Jewish law.
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It says they are guilty before God.
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But the critical distinction, like the load-bearing wall of this entire argument, is why they are guilty.
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Right.
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It's not just that they did bad things.
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No, the sermon emphasizes that they are not guilty out of ignorance.
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They aren't just, you know, fumbling around in the dark simply because no one bothered to turn on the lights for them.
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Right.
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They are guilty out of active premeditated rebellion.
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Yeah, the exact phrase used in the text is suppressing the truth in unrighteousness.
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And the sermon uses this incredibly vivid physical analogy that just kind of sticks in your brain.
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Oh, the beach ball.
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Yes.
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Elder Tolliver says, picture a beach ball.
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You're standing waist deep in a swimming pool, and you try to push that fully inflated beach ball underwater.
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It is a brilliant physical representation of what is essentially a psychological and spiritual claim about the human condition.
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Because think about the physics of that beach ball.
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It naturally wants to rise.
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Yeah, the buoyancy forces it up.
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That is its default state.
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To keep it submerged, you can't just casually rest your hand on it.
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You can't just forget about it and walk away.
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And it pops right back up.
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Exactly.
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You have to exert immense, continuous, exhausting physical effort.
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You have to force it down with all your body weight.
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Yeah.
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And the sermon argues that this is exactly what human beings do with the truth of God's righteousness and our own accountability.
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Aaron Powell The truth naturally rises to the surface of our conscience, but we exert massive spiritual and mental energy to hold it down.
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But why?
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Like why do we do that?
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Aaron Powell Well, because dealing with that truth, letting it break the surface of the water, requires bowing to a higher authority.
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Oh, right.
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It requires a total surrender of human autonomy.
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Because if that beach ball of truth surfaces, it immediately demands a change in behavior, a change in allegiance, and a recognition of absolute sovereignty.
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And the human ego hates that.
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The human ego is fundamentally allergic to surrendering its sovereignty.
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But let me um let me play devil's advocate regarding human psychology for a second here.
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Sure.
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Is it really human nature to instinctively suppress uncomfortable realities across the board?
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I was thinking about this, and the beach of all feels a bit abstract.
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Okay.
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It feels more to me like hitting the snooze button on a blaring smoke alarm instead of actually getting out of bed to put up the fire.
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Interesting.
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Like you hear the noise, you know exactly what it means, but dealing with the fire is terrifying and exhausting.
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So you just smack the button to buy yourself nine more minutes of denial.
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I mean, I see where you're going with the smoke alarm analogy, but I would actually argue that Elder Tolliver's interpretation of Paul's argument is much darker than that.
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Aaron Powell Really?
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How so?
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Well, hitting the snooze button implies that you still, on some level, plan to wake up eventually.
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You acknowledge the fire, you're just delaying the response.
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Oh, okay.
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Romans 1, as unpacked in this sermon, implies that humanity doesn't just want to hit snooze.
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We want to dismantle the alarm entirely, take out the batteries, smash the plastic casing, and pretend the concept of fire doesn't even exist.
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Wow.
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It's not lazy denial, it's hostile suppression.
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That is a massive distinction.
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I mean, it's the difference between being asleep at the wheel and actively driving the car into oncoming traffic.
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Precisely.
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Yeah.
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And what's fascinating here is the underlying theological foundation of Paul's letter to the Romans that the sermon highlights.
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Right.
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Paul's ultimate goal in this epistle isn't just to write a hit piece on the pagan Roman world.
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His rhetorical strategy is much wider and much more devastating.
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Aaron Powell, he's going after everybody.
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Yes.
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He is systematically setting up an argument to prove that both Jews who possessed the written divine law and Gentiles who did not have the written law are equally, hopelessly, sinners in need of grace.
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Aaron Powell So he is totally leveling the playing field.
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He's taking away the religious high ground from the people who thought having the rule book made them safe.
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Aaron Powell He is.
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And the sermon brings in a quote from a classical theologian named Stiefler, which I think is absolutely central to understanding this whole diagnostic approach.
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What's the quote?
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Stiefler writes, sin is the measure of salvation.
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Sin is the measure of salvation.
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Man, let's um let's sit with that for a second.
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What does that actually mean mechanically?
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Aaron Powell The logic is that human beings simply cannot appreciate the magnitude, the power, or the necessity of the cure without first grasping the absolute severity of the disease.
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Right.
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If the spiritual disease is just a mild cold, say mere ignorance, a lack of education, or a slight moral slip-up, then the cure is just a spiritual aspect.
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You just need a good teacher or maybe a better political system.
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Exactly.
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But if the disease is a terminal, willful, hostile rebellion against the fabric of reality itself, then the cure requires something miraculous.
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It requires a resurrection.
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Yeah.
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Paul is establishing the terminal nature of the disease so that when he eventually introduces the gospel in the later chapters, its explosive power is fully understood by the reader.
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Okay.
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So if humanity is actively holding this beach ball of truth underwater, if they are constantly trying to smash the smoke alarm of their conscience, it begs a massive, unavoidable question.
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Where did they get the truth in the first place?
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Exactly.
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If the Gentile world doesn't have the written scriptures, if they don't have Moses or the prophets, what truth are they supposedly suppressing?
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And that leads us directly into the sermon's view of the physical natural world, which is a massive theological pivot.
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Yeah, tell me about this because this concept is huge.
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This brings us to the foundational concept of natural revelation.
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The sermon asserts that God's invisible attributes, which Paul specifically defines as his eternal power and his divine nature, are clearly perceived in the things that have been made.
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The physical creation.
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Right.
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In this worldview, the universe isn't just a lifeless accidental backdrop for human history.
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It is God's first sermon.
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It is his primary witness, and crucially, it serves as his courtroom testimony against human ignorance.
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The sermon cites the Psalms here to back this up, kind of leaning into that ancient poetic understanding of the cosmos, right?
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Like Psalm 8.3, where David talks about considering the heavens, the work of God's fingers, the moon, and the stars, which he has ordained.
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And Psalm 19.1.
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Yeah.
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The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows his handiwork.
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Right.
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The core argument here is that you cannot look at the spiraling arms of a galaxy or the hypercomplex machinery of a microscopic cell and logically intellectually conclude that it was all a blind, purposeless accident.
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The sermon explicitly calls creation God's billboard.
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And because this cosmic billboard is so massive, so omnipresent, and so undeniable, the text draws a hard legal conclusion.
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Humanity is without excuse.
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When humanity stands before the divine judge, they cannot plead ignorance.
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But Elder Tolliver doesn't just say humanity glanced at the billboard and looked away.
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He details a very specific, tragic, psychological and cultural progression.
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A step down.
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Yeah, it outlines a tragic staircase of human descent away from this revealed truth.
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Let's analyze the staircase because it's not just a random list of bad things, it's a systematic breakdown of how a society's mind collapses.
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Absolutely.
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It starts with the premise that they knew God, but they refused to glorify him as God.
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They refused to give him his rightful sovereign place.
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That is the pivotal moment.
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And from that initial fundamental refusal to glorify, the very next step on the staircase is that they became unthankful.
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Unthankful.
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Now we often think of unthankfulness as just like bad manners.
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Right, like forgetting to set a thank you card.
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Exactly.
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But the sermon makes a profound point here about the spiritual danger of ingratitude.
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It references that biblical story in the Gospel of Luke, where Jesus heals ten men of leprosy, but only one bothers to return and say thank you.
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Aaron Powell That's a 10% gratitude rate for a literal miracle.
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Yeah.
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And the implication Tolliver draws is that ingratitude isn't just rudeness, it is a symptom of a heart that is actively trying to sever its dependency on its creator.
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Because gratitude requires acknowledging a giver.
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It requires acknowledging that you are a recipient, that you are not self-sufficient.
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Human autonomy despises dependency.
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So shutting off gratitude is the first necessary step to shutting out God.
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Aaron Powell That makes total psychological sense.
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If I don't thank you, I don't owe you anything.
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Exactly.
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And once that gratitude is shut off, the text moves to the intellect.
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It says they developed vain or empty imaginations.
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Their minds started generating smoke instead of light.
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And this is where the sermon directly confronts modern secular origin theories.
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It explicitly dismisses theories like macroevolution, framing them not as neutral scientific progress, but as vain hollow attempts to explain the awe-inspiring complexity of the universe while desperately trying to push the architect out of the frame.
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It views these theories as elaborate coping mechanisms for the suppression of truth, which leads directly to the next stage of the descent.
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Their foolish hearts were darkened.
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Yeah.
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The theological framing here treats darkness not as an active aggressive entity itself, but simply as the inevitable natural result of shutting out the light.
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You didn't create darkness, you just blocked the sun.
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That's a great way to put it.
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And then we hear the profound, tragic irony of it all.
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The text says: Claiming to be wise, they became fools.
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Yeah.
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The sermon paints this incredibly vivid picture of humanity writing massive encyclopedias, holding prestigious academic conferences, building incredibly complex philosophical systems, conferring degrees upon one another.
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All of it.
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All of which are ultimately deemed absolute foolishness in the eyes of eternity.
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Why?
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Because they lack the foundational axiom of reality, the existence of God.
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It's the idea that you could do incredibly complex calculus.
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But if you get the very first variable in the equation wrong, the final answer, no matter how much work you showed, is going to be wildly incorrect.
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Which brings us to the bottom of the staircase, the ultimate tragedy.
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They traded the glory of the incorruptible immortal god for images.
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Idolatry.
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Making gods that look like mortal men or birds or four-footed animals or creeping reptiles.
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Now here is a dynamic that I find absolutely fascinating.
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Think about the sheer absurdity of this exchange.
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I'll give you an analogy.
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Let's hear it.
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Imagine you are a starving, freezing traveler, right?
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And you are invited into a magnificent, intricately designed, billion-dollar mansion.
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Sounds nice.
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The architecture is breathtaking.
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There is a massive feast laid out on a mahogany table just for you.
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Yeah.
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The climate control is perfect.
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And instead of finding the architect and the host to say, you know, thank you, this is incredible, you saved my life.
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You decide to get down on your hands and knees and worship the floral pattern on the wallpaper.
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Oh wow.
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Or you decide to worship a beetle you found crawling on the baseboard.
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It's not just factually wrong, it's an insulting, degrading exchange.
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That wallpaper analogy captures the exact absurdity that Paul is highlighting in the text.
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But we need to look closer at why humanity makes that insulting exchange.
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Right.
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How does this entire biblical framework completely invert the modern secular narrative of human history?
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The sermon references Sir William Ramsey, a prominent archaeologist and New Testament scholar, to hammer this point home.
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What does Ramsay say?
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Well, the prevailing modern secular view is the ascent of man.
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It's the narrative that we started in caves, grunting at the thunder, terrified of the dark, inventing primitive animistic gods out of psychological fear.
00:16:04.769 --> 00:16:04.850
Right.
00:16:04.930 --> 00:16:10.610
And then we slowly, heroically evolved upward into enlightened, rational, scientific beings.
00:16:11.090 --> 00:16:13.889
The triumphant upward climb from the mud to the stars.
00:16:14.290 --> 00:16:14.610
Yes.
00:16:14.850 --> 00:16:18.930
But Romans 1, in this sermon, argued the exact diametric opposite.
00:16:19.090 --> 00:16:20.450
It argues the descent of man.
00:16:21.090 --> 00:16:31.330
Ramsey's archaeological and historical point, echoed by Elder Tolliver, is that human history doesn't actually show man climbing upward naturally in his morality or his knowledge of the divine.
00:16:31.490 --> 00:16:35.730
It shows man degenerating whenever he stands alone without divine revelation.
00:16:36.129 --> 00:16:36.610
Interesting.
00:16:37.009 --> 00:16:42.769
Primitive man wasn't ignorant of the one true God who then invented polytheism as a stepping stone.
00:16:42.930 --> 00:16:50.690
According to this text, humanity knew the one true God and actively, willfully walked away from him into polytheism and animism.
00:16:51.170 --> 00:16:55.970
So idolatry isn't an early, primitive, clumsy attempt to understand the divine.
00:16:56.129 --> 00:16:58.129
It's not like a toddler trying to draw a masterpiece.
00:16:58.290 --> 00:16:58.450
No.
00:16:58.690 --> 00:17:00.850
Idolatry is a deliberate cartoon of God.
00:17:00.930 --> 00:17:02.530
It's a caricature, it's a slander.
00:17:02.930 --> 00:17:03.410
Exactly.
00:17:03.570 --> 00:17:06.529
It is a way to remake God into something manageable.
00:17:06.690 --> 00:17:07.490
Think about it.
00:17:07.649 --> 00:17:13.490
If your God is a statue of a golden calf or a carved wooden bird, that statue cannot speak.
00:17:13.569 --> 00:17:14.930
It cannot tell you how to live.
00:17:15.089 --> 00:17:15.250
Right.
00:17:15.569 --> 00:17:16.769
It cannot demand justice.
00:17:16.930 --> 00:17:18.690
It cannot judge your secret sins.
00:17:18.769 --> 00:17:19.889
It is entirely safe.
00:17:20.049 --> 00:17:23.409
You can put it on a shelf, offer it a little grain, and then go live however you want.
00:17:23.730 --> 00:17:25.409
It's a God you can control.
00:17:25.889 --> 00:17:29.009
You created it, therefore you are sovereign over it.
00:17:29.250 --> 00:17:33.649
It is the ultimate manifestation of the suppression of truth through the substitution of the truth.
00:17:33.970 --> 00:17:34.609
Precisely.
00:17:34.849 --> 00:17:41.970
You trade the terrifying, demanding reality of a holy God for a safe, silent piece of wood.
00:17:42.369 --> 00:17:42.689
Wow.
00:17:42.849 --> 00:17:58.369
Okay, so if humanity has deliberately ignored this massive billboard of creation, if we've walked down this tragic staircase to worship the wallpaper instead of the architect, if we've built safe, silent gods to avoid accountability, what is the real God's reaction?
00:17:58.689 --> 00:17:58.849
Right.
00:17:59.089 --> 00:18:01.809
Because you can't have a courtroom testimony without a verdict.
00:18:02.129 --> 00:18:02.449
You can't.
00:18:02.689 --> 00:18:10.449
The text introduces a concept, a single word really, that makes a vast majority of modern leaders, even modern religious readers, incredibly uncomfortable.
00:18:10.689 --> 00:18:12.209
That word is wrath.
00:18:12.609 --> 00:18:16.209
It is without a doubt one of the most viscerally misunderstood concepts in all of theology.
00:18:16.449 --> 00:18:16.689
Totally.
00:18:16.929 --> 00:18:29.409
And Elder Tolliver spends a highly significant portion of the sermon explicitly redefining what the wrath of God actually means, doing the hard work of intentionally stripping it of all our projected human emotional baggage.
00:18:29.490 --> 00:18:34.769
Aaron Powell Because when the average person hears the word wrath, we immediately think of a temper tantrum.
00:18:35.009 --> 00:18:35.250
Yes.
00:18:35.490 --> 00:18:42.209
We picture Greek gods on Mount Olympus hurling lightning bolts at peasants because someone forgot to sacrifice a goat, you know?
00:18:42.609 --> 00:18:50.049
We think of human rage, which is almost always unpredictable, petty, vindictive, and usually involves a loss of self-control.
00:18:50.529 --> 00:18:53.730
And that is exactly the definition the sermon is trying to dismantle.
00:18:54.049 --> 00:18:59.169
Tolliver goes straight to the original Greek word used by Paul in Romans, which is orgli.
00:19:00.129 --> 00:19:04.689
Now among humans, orgyo often does show up as anger seeking retaliation.
00:19:04.849 --> 00:19:14.609
The sermon even contrasts to this by pointing out Paul's own words in Ephesians 4.31, which explicitly tells humans to put away all wrath, anger, and malice.
00:19:14.929 --> 00:19:16.049
So human wrath is bad.
00:19:16.369 --> 00:19:19.169
Human wrath is categorized as a sinful passion.
00:19:19.250 --> 00:19:20.049
It's a defect.
00:19:20.529 --> 00:19:26.529
But when the exact same word is applied to the divine, the text insists we must strip it of that flawed human passion.
00:19:26.849 --> 00:19:35.009
The sermon describes God's wrath not as a frustrated, red-faced deity losing control of his temper, but as a constant, unchanging displeasure with evil.
00:19:35.169 --> 00:19:38.369
It's a settled, holy, righteous indignation.
00:19:38.529 --> 00:19:43.169
And it actively counters that incredibly popular cultural claim.
00:19:43.329 --> 00:19:59.169
You know, you hear in college dorms and coffee shops all the time that the God of the Old Testament is this angry, wrathful, genocidal figure, while the God of the New Testament, as revealed in Jesus, is basically a cosmic hippie who is all about unconditional peace and non-judgmental love.
00:19:59.569 --> 00:20:02.049
The sermon completely rejects that dichotomy.
00:20:02.369 --> 00:20:07.089
It points out that the specific word orgo appears 35 times in the New Testament alone.
00:20:07.329 --> 00:20:07.490
Yeah.
00:20:07.649 --> 00:20:11.009
The argument is that God's fundamental stance on sin never fluctuates.
00:20:11.490 --> 00:20:16.209
The key philosophical distinction the sermon makes here is rooted in the nature of God Himself, right?
00:20:16.609 --> 00:20:16.849
Yes.
00:20:17.089 --> 00:20:20.209
God by definition cannot be injured by human sin.
00:20:20.449 --> 00:20:24.049
You cannot diminish his power, you cannot steal his joy, you cannot actually harm him.
00:20:24.369 --> 00:20:25.889
So he has no reason to be petty.
00:20:26.209 --> 00:20:26.849
Exactly.
00:20:27.089 --> 00:20:30.369
Therefore, he has absolutely no motive for personal revenge.
00:20:30.529 --> 00:20:34.529
He isn't lashing out because his feelings are hurt or his ego is bruised.
00:20:34.769 --> 00:20:38.609
His wrath is simply his absolute holiness reacting to the presence of sin.
00:20:38.849 --> 00:20:39.569
It's just who he is.
00:20:39.889 --> 00:20:44.209
It is the necessary, unavoidable correlative of his righteousness.
00:20:45.169 --> 00:20:51.089
If he is perfectly good, he must, by definition, perfectly oppose that which is evil.
00:20:51.569 --> 00:20:59.009
But how does a modern listener trying to wrap their head around this reconcile the idea of a perfectly loving creator with a wrathful one?
00:20:59.089 --> 00:21:01.009
Aaron Ross Powell We are taught that love is acceptance.
00:21:01.250 --> 00:21:01.409
Right.
00:21:01.649 --> 00:21:07.089
I was trying to come up with a real-world analogy for this that doesn't rely on ancient kings or lightning bolts.
00:21:07.250 --> 00:21:09.730
Think about a modern judge sitting on the bench.
00:21:09.970 --> 00:21:10.209
Okay.
00:21:10.449 --> 00:21:14.529
A really good, perfectly just, deeply compassionate judge.
00:21:14.769 --> 00:21:25.889
If a violent criminal is brought before this judge, someone who has caused immense trauma to a community, who has preyed on the weak, and who shows absolutely no remorse, and the judge just looks at them and says, You know what?
00:21:25.970 --> 00:21:26.689
I'm full of love.
00:21:26.769 --> 00:21:27.250
I forgive you.
00:21:27.329 --> 00:21:28.129
I don't want to be angry.
00:21:28.209 --> 00:21:28.929
You are free to go.
00:21:29.169 --> 00:21:29.329
Right.
00:21:29.569 --> 00:21:31.009
We wouldn't call that a good judge.
00:21:31.089 --> 00:21:34.769
We would call that a deeply corrupt, terrifyingly negligent judge.
00:21:34.849 --> 00:21:35.009
Trevor Burrus, Jr.
00:21:35.169 --> 00:21:38.689
We would say that judge lacks a fundamental commitment to justice.
00:21:39.009 --> 00:21:44.689
Their love for the criminal is actually a profound hatred for the victims and for the safety of the society.
00:21:44.929 --> 00:21:45.649
Exactly.
00:21:45.889 --> 00:21:52.369
A good judge who refuses to let a violent criminal go free isn't angry in a petty, vindictive way.
00:21:52.769 --> 00:21:59.169
Their justice, their wrath against the crime, is actually an expression of their goodness and their desire to protect the innocent.
00:21:59.809 --> 00:22:01.089
It is a moral necessity.
00:22:01.250 --> 00:22:03.649
If they don't punish the evil, they aren't good.
00:22:04.129 --> 00:22:09.169
That analogy perfectly aligns with the sermon's explanation of a moral necessity of God's wrath.
00:22:09.329 --> 00:22:18.689
The text argues that in our daily lives, we instinctively admire a father who refuses to tolerate chaos or abuse in his home, or a civic leader who stands firm.
00:22:19.169 --> 00:22:21.250
Firmly and aggressively against corruption and crime.
00:22:21.569 --> 00:22:22.289
Right, we praise them.
00:22:22.529 --> 00:22:26.449
The stronger and more unyielding their opposition to evil, the more we honor them.
00:22:26.689 --> 00:22:29.490
The sermon then asks a very piercing question.
00:22:29.809 --> 00:22:31.329
Why then do we stumble?
00:22:31.490 --> 00:22:36.209
Why do we get offended when an infinitely holy God stands entirely opposed to all sin?
00:22:36.369 --> 00:22:36.769
Wow.
00:22:37.009 --> 00:22:43.889
His wrath is framed not as the opposite of his love, but as his love fiercely protecting the moral order and ultimate peace of his universe.
00:22:44.209 --> 00:22:44.369
Okay.
00:22:44.529 --> 00:22:46.369
I think that clarifies the nature of the wrath.
00:22:46.449 --> 00:22:48.689
It's a settled judicial opposition to evil.
00:22:48.849 --> 00:22:50.769
But here is the next massive question.
00:22:51.009 --> 00:23:02.289
If we accept this definition of wrath, that it's not throwing thunderbolts, it's not a divine temper tantrum, how exactly does this sermon claim that his wrath is unfolding in the world right now?
00:23:02.529 --> 00:23:09.089
Because we look around, we read the news, and we don't necessarily see fire raining from the sky on wicked cities.
00:23:09.250 --> 00:23:12.529
We see bad people getting rich and living long lives.
00:23:12.849 --> 00:23:19.569
And this brings us to perhaps the most sobering, psychologically terrifying concept presented in the entire sermon.
00:23:19.889 --> 00:23:21.009
Prepare yourself, listener.
00:23:21.329 --> 00:23:25.009
The judgment described in Romans 1 is not active cinematic punishment.
00:23:25.409 --> 00:23:26.849
It is passive release.
00:23:27.009 --> 00:23:33.329
It is the theological concept that God's wrath is primarily manifested when he simply steps back and says, have it your way.
00:23:33.649 --> 00:23:37.089
The text repeats a chilling, repetitive phrase three separate times.
00:23:37.329 --> 00:23:38.209
God gave them up.
00:23:38.449 --> 00:23:39.089
God gave them up.
00:23:39.409 --> 00:23:40.929
Just let the weight of that phrase sink in.
00:23:41.009 --> 00:23:43.649
It's not God actively pushing humanity into a pit.
00:23:43.730 --> 00:23:49.409
It's God removing his hand from the collar of a humanity that is aggressively sprinting toward the edge of the cliff.
00:23:49.730 --> 00:23:52.609
It is the terrifying withdrawal of divine restraint.
00:23:52.849 --> 00:24:07.250
The sermon references other biblical moments, like Acts 14.6 mean, where Paul says God allowed all nations to walk in their own ways, and Genesis 6.3, right before the flood, where God says, My spirit shall not strive with man forever.
00:24:07.569 --> 00:24:09.250
It's the lifting of common grace.
00:24:09.490 --> 00:24:18.049
The underlying theology here is that God is at all times actively holding back the full, destructive, radioactive force of human sin.
00:24:18.289 --> 00:24:21.089
We aren't as bad as we could be because God restrains us.
00:24:21.329 --> 00:24:21.730
Oh man.
00:24:21.970 --> 00:24:25.970
Therefore, his most severe judgment is simply to stop holding it back.
00:24:26.289 --> 00:24:32.769
The analogy that immediately came to my mind when reading this section is a car parked on a steep, winding mountain road.
00:24:33.009 --> 00:24:39.490
The natural gravity of the situation, the weight of the car, wants to pull that vehicle down to the bottom and smash it into a concrete wall.
00:24:39.730 --> 00:24:39.970
Right.
00:24:40.209 --> 00:24:43.250
God's grace, his restraint is the emergency brake.
00:24:43.409 --> 00:24:50.129
But we sit in the driver's seat, complaining about the brake, fighting the brake, arguing that the brake is restricting our personal freedom to move.
00:24:50.289 --> 00:24:56.289
And God's passive wrath is simply him finally saying, Okay, you want absolute freedom from the brake.
00:24:56.449 --> 00:24:57.250
You want autonomy.
00:24:57.329 --> 00:24:58.369
I'll take the brakes off.
00:24:58.609 --> 00:25:04.689
The violent, twisted metal destruction that follows at the bottom of the hill isn't God actively pushing the car.
00:25:04.769 --> 00:25:10.369
It's just the natural, unavoidable consequence of gravity and our own relentless desires.
00:25:10.769 --> 00:25:14.289
That is a phenomenal articulation of the mechanics of passive wrath.
00:25:14.369 --> 00:25:21.490
And this is exactly where the sermon applies this abstract theological concept directly to the flashpoint of human sexuality.
00:25:21.730 --> 00:25:21.889
Right.
00:25:22.049 --> 00:25:32.129
Elder Tolliver points directly to the verses in Romans that describe women exchanging natural relations for those contrary to nature, and men doing likewise with men, burning in their lust for one another.
00:25:32.369 --> 00:25:45.970
The sermon frames these shifts in sexual behavior, what modern culture might label as alternative lifestyles or sexual liberation, not as a triumph of human progress or freedom, but as a direct, visible manifestation of this divine judgment.
00:25:46.289 --> 00:26:22.219
And stepping back to look at the structure of Toliper's argument, he is asserting that modern societal shifts in sexual ethics aren't the cause of God's wrath, but the evidence that the passive wrath has already begun.
00:26:22.779 --> 00:26:23.179
Exactly.
00:26:23.419 --> 00:26:32.459
He claims that when humanity fundamentally exalts the creature above the Creator, God responds by giving them over to their own degrading passions.
00:26:32.779 --> 00:26:39.979
The behavior itself is described by Paul as receiving in themselves the due penalty of their error.
00:26:40.459 --> 00:26:51.739
If we look past the immediate cultural controversy and connect this to the broader psychological picture, there is a profound insight embedded in this theology regarding human learning and repentance.
00:26:51.979 --> 00:26:52.459
Like what?
00:26:52.699 --> 00:26:57.899
Well, the sermon brilliantly uses the metaphor the prodigal son from the teachings of Jesus to illustrate this.
00:26:58.139 --> 00:27:05.419
In that story, the father didn't lock his rebellious, demanding son in his bedroom to prevent him from ruining his life.
00:27:05.579 --> 00:27:07.339
He didn't put armed guards at the gate.
00:27:07.579 --> 00:27:07.739
Right.
00:27:07.819 --> 00:27:08.459
He let him go.
00:27:08.619 --> 00:27:11.179
He actually gave the boy his inheritance and let him walk away.
00:27:11.339 --> 00:27:11.739
Why?
00:27:11.979 --> 00:27:16.939
Because the father knew that the boy's heart was already gone and he knew the boy wouldn't truly come to himself.
00:27:17.099 --> 00:27:23.979
He wouldn't realize the horror of his autonomy until he had hit absolute rock bottom, starving in a literal pig pen.
00:27:24.139 --> 00:27:36.219
Sometimes, the theological argument goes: the only possible cure for deep systemic spiritual corruption is to let someone taste the absolute, unfiltered, nauseating bitterness of their own sin.
00:27:36.619 --> 00:27:43.099
It's the ultimate excruciating form of tough love, letting the natural consequences become the brutal teacher.
00:27:43.419 --> 00:27:54.779
But um, before we move on to the final terminal stage of this societal collapse, there's a really intriguing literary detour the sermon takes right in the middle of describing all this heavy, dark judgment.
00:27:55.019 --> 00:27:55.339
Oh, yes.
00:27:55.659 --> 00:28:00.939
It's a linguistic observation about a sudden, almost involuntary burst of praise in Paul's text.
00:28:01.019 --> 00:28:02.779
Aaron Powell Yes, it happens in verse 25.
00:28:03.179 --> 00:28:14.459
Right after describing this terrible, degrading exchange of the truth of God for a lie, the worship of the creature rather than the creator, Paul abruptly interrupts his own dark train of thought to exclaim, Who is blessed forever?
00:28:14.539 --> 00:28:14.779
Amen.
00:28:15.099 --> 00:28:19.339
The sermon stops to deeply analyze this instinct to praise God mid-sentence.
00:28:19.419 --> 00:28:21.259
It describes it as a reflex of reverence.
00:28:21.579 --> 00:28:22.539
A reflex of reverence.
00:28:22.859 --> 00:28:23.579
I love that phrase.
00:28:23.659 --> 00:28:36.619
It's like Paul is swimming through this dark, polluted water of human depravity, holding his breath, and he just has to suddenly kick to the surface to take a deep gasp of pure air, affirming the light before diving back into the diagnosis.
00:28:37.019 --> 00:28:39.259
It is a survival mechanism for the soul.
00:28:39.499 --> 00:28:45.099
And the sermon provides some fascinating historical context to show that this wasn't just a quirk of the Apostle Paul.
00:28:45.259 --> 00:28:45.419
Right.
00:28:45.659 --> 00:28:50.219
It mentions the honorable Robert Boyle, the famous 17th century chemist and physicist.
00:28:50.459 --> 00:28:55.099
Boyle was a pioneer of the scientific method, a man of immense intellect.
00:28:55.259 --> 00:29:08.779
Yet it was said that Boyle would never mention the name of God in conversation without pausing, just a brief, noticeable moment of silence out of deep reverence, specifically to prevent careless, casual familiarity with the divine.
00:29:09.099 --> 00:29:15.339
And what's really compelling is that the sermon points out this instinct isn't strictly limited to a Christian or Jewish tradition either.
00:29:15.499 --> 00:29:23.259
The text mentions a story related by a 19th-century theologian named Tholeck about an ancient Arabic manuscript discovered in Berlin.
00:29:23.659 --> 00:29:30.059
Yes, it was a Muslim theological text describing various heretical sects and blasphemous ideas.
00:29:30.299 --> 00:29:41.739
And the manuscript revealed that every single time the author had to name a new heresy or write out a blasphemous claim, he would pause his academic documentation and write, God be exalted above all they say.
00:29:42.139 --> 00:29:43.019
That's incredible.
00:29:43.339 --> 00:29:47.179
The sermon uses these historical anecdotes to challenge the modern listener.
00:29:47.499 --> 00:29:50.539
Do we possess that same reflex of reverence?
00:29:50.779 --> 00:30:00.939
When we are scrolling through the news, when we are discussing deep cultural error or moral darkness, is our first involuntary instinct to elevate the holiness of God in our minds.
00:30:01.179 --> 00:30:06.219
It's a call to a discipline of devotion that guards the heart from becoming numb to the dark.
00:30:06.539 --> 00:30:15.019
That pause, that amen, which the text defines as a solemn, so let it be, is such a stark, beautiful contrast to the absolute nightmare of what comes next.
00:30:15.339 --> 00:30:15.979
It gets worse.
00:30:16.299 --> 00:30:23.259
Because the sermon points out that this terrifying giving up by God doesn't just stop at physical behaviors or physical consequences, it goes deeper.
00:30:23.339 --> 00:30:27.899
It completely relights the core operating system of the human being, it corrupts the mind itself.
00:30:28.299 --> 00:30:33.819
This is the third and arguably the most devastating time Paul says God gave them up.
00:30:34.219 --> 00:30:40.779
And this time, he doesn't just give them over to lusts or passions, he gives them over to a reprobate mind.
00:30:41.099 --> 00:30:42.299
A reprobate mind.
00:30:42.539 --> 00:30:46.699
That's a heavy, slightly antiquated phrase that sounds like something out of a Victorian novel.
00:30:47.019 --> 00:30:47.419
It does.
00:30:47.739 --> 00:30:49.899
But the sermon defines it with chilling clarity.
00:30:50.059 --> 00:30:53.579
It is a mind destitute of sound judgment.
00:30:53.819 --> 00:30:59.099
A mind that has lost its moral compass so completely that it genuinely calls evil good and good evil.
00:30:59.499 --> 00:31:06.459
And here, Elder Tolliver highlights a brilliant, deeply ironic bit of Greek wordplay that Paul uses to explain how this happens.
00:31:06.779 --> 00:31:08.139
Oh, the wordplay is fascinating.
00:31:08.539 --> 00:31:16.459
The text says that because humanity did not approve the Greek word, there is dokimazu, which means to test a metal and find it worthy, to validate.
00:31:16.779 --> 00:31:19.659
Because they did not dokimazu to retain God in their knowledge.
00:31:19.819 --> 00:31:25.419
God, in response, gave him over to an unapproved or reprobate mind, the Greek word adokimos.
00:31:25.819 --> 00:31:27.659
Dokimazu and adokimos.
00:31:28.059 --> 00:31:30.299
It's a perfect, tragic mirror.
00:31:30.539 --> 00:31:38.779
They tested God in their thinking and rejected him as unworthy, so God handed them over to a mind that is fundamentally rejected, useless, or broken.
00:31:39.179 --> 00:31:39.819
Exactly.
00:31:40.139 --> 00:31:42.379
The mind is no longer functioning as designed.
00:31:42.459 --> 00:31:46.699
Its capacity to discern spiritual and moral reality has been shattered.
00:31:47.019 --> 00:31:52.059
I was trying to figure out how a mind morally malfunctions to this degree.
00:31:52.299 --> 00:31:54.459
Because we aren't talking about people losing their IQ.
00:31:54.779 --> 00:31:55.339
No, not at all.
00:31:55.739 --> 00:32:06.539
How does a brain that can still do complex astrophysics, invent artificial intelligence, and build suspension bridges fail so spectacularly at basic fundamental morality?
00:32:06.859 --> 00:32:07.419
That's a great question.
00:32:07.659 --> 00:32:11.339
And going back to the tech world, I think the best analogy is a computer operating system.
00:32:11.739 --> 00:32:16.299
Think about the kernel, the core code that tells the hardware how to process information.
00:32:16.539 --> 00:32:21.579
If that underlying kernel code has been corrupted by a virus, it doesn't matter how fast your processor is.
00:32:21.659 --> 00:32:23.339
It doesn't matter how much RAM you have.
00:32:23.579 --> 00:32:29.339
Every single program you try to run is going to eventually glitch, output false data, or crash entirely.
00:32:29.579 --> 00:32:41.019
You can have a society that builds skyscrapers and cures diseases, but if the moral operating system, the kernel, is a dockamose, reprobate, your society is eventually going to tear itself apart from the inside out.
00:32:41.339 --> 00:32:45.899
That OS kernel analogy is incredibly precise for what Paul is describing.
00:32:46.139 --> 00:32:50.779
And it raises an urgent question, one that Elder Tolliver addresses directly to his audience.
00:32:51.019 --> 00:33:06.139
He argues that modern societal collapse, the skyrocketing rates of despair, the senseless violence, the fracturing of communities that we see, even in the most incredibly wealthy, technologically advanced nations on earth, is fundamentally a spiritual problem, not a secular, political, or economic one.
00:33:06.699 --> 00:33:12.379
We have trillions of dollars, we have advanced pharmacology, we have incredible machinery, yet the social fabric still crumbles.
00:33:12.859 --> 00:33:13.499
Why?
00:33:14.059 --> 00:33:20.379
Because, as the sermon states, you cannot fix a corrupted spiritual operating system with secular software patches.
00:33:20.699 --> 00:33:28.059
And the proof of this corrupted operating system, the output of this bad code, is what the sermon calls the catalog of collapse.
00:33:28.299 --> 00:33:35.259
It's a massive, breathless, 24-point list of sins that spill out of a reprobate mind like toxic waste.
00:33:35.339 --> 00:33:37.659
Aaron Powell It is an overwhelming, relentless list.
00:33:37.819 --> 00:33:41.179
Paul stacks these words like bricks building a prison.
00:33:41.339 --> 00:33:45.979
The list includes things we might expect like fornication, wickedness, covetousness, and maliciousness.
00:33:46.139 --> 00:33:51.179
He talks about people being full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malignity.
00:33:51.259 --> 00:33:56.779
Aaron Powell But I want to stop and look at some of the specific words Paul chooses here because it's not just a list of violent crimes.
00:33:56.939 --> 00:34:00.459
He includes whisperers and backbiters, gossips.
00:34:00.859 --> 00:34:02.619
People who destroy reputations in secret.
00:34:02.939 --> 00:34:03.099
Yes.
00:34:03.259 --> 00:34:06.459
He lists them right alongside haters of God and murderers.
00:34:06.539 --> 00:34:10.539
And then there is a phrase that I find particularly terrifying: inventors of evil.
00:34:10.860 --> 00:34:12.380
Yes, inventors of evil.
00:34:12.539 --> 00:34:15.500
That speaks to the proactive nature of the reprobate mind.
00:34:15.659 --> 00:34:26.779
It isn't just that humanity stumbles into old sins, it actively uses its God-given creativity and intellect to engineer brand new ways to rebel, new ways to exploit, new ways to cause pain.
00:34:26.940 --> 00:34:28.940
It is the dark side of human innovation.
00:34:29.259 --> 00:34:35.340
And then, perhaps the most surprising inclusion in the entire 24-point list, disobedient to parents.
00:34:35.820 --> 00:34:41.019
He puts teenagers rebelling against their parents in the exact same catalog as murder and hating God.
00:34:41.179 --> 00:34:46.299
Why is a family dynamic issue listed as a sign of terminal societal collapse?
00:34:46.779 --> 00:34:54.700
Because in classical Christian theology and in ancient political philosophy as well, the family is the foundational atomic unit of society.
00:34:54.940 --> 00:35:00.220
It is the first place a human being encounters authority, love, order, and truth.
00:35:00.619 --> 00:35:01.019
That makes sense.
00:35:01.340 --> 00:35:11.019
If the fundamental relationship between a parent and a child breaks down, if that micro society unravels, then the macro society, the state, has absolutely no chance of surviving.
00:35:11.179 --> 00:35:15.579
It shows that the corruption has penetrated to the deepest, most intimate roots of human existence.
00:35:15.980 --> 00:35:18.860
The entire load-bearing wall of society is gone.
00:35:19.019 --> 00:35:21.579
The text includes a great, highly relevant quote from Dr.
00:35:21.659 --> 00:35:26.460
Javurn and McGee to illustrate how painfully modern this 2,000-year-old list actually is.
00:35:26.780 --> 00:35:27.340
Oh, I love this quote.
00:35:27.659 --> 00:35:40.619
McGee used to tell his seminary students to go out and buy any major city newspaper, sit down with a cup of coffee, and he guaranteed they would be able to find a headline on the front pages corresponding to every single sin Paul lists in that chapter.
00:35:41.019 --> 00:35:44.940
It is a devastatingly accurate mirror held up to human history.
00:35:45.179 --> 00:35:50.139
But Elder Colliver points out an ultimate flashing red warning sign in the text.
00:35:50.380 --> 00:35:54.860
It's one thing to have individuals in a society committing these sins.
00:35:54.940 --> 00:35:55.980
There has always been murder.
00:35:56.059 --> 00:35:57.099
There's always been theft.
00:35:57.340 --> 00:35:57.420
Right.
00:35:57.659 --> 00:36:04.059
But it's another thing entirely when a culture reaches what the sermon considers the terminal stage of this collapse.
00:36:04.380 --> 00:36:07.099
The final verse of Romans 1, verse 32.
00:36:07.340 --> 00:36:17.740
It says that they know the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, but not only do they do the same, but they also have pleasure in or give approval to those who practice them.
00:36:18.139 --> 00:36:25.179
The sermon identifies this as the absolute hallmark, the final symptom of the reprobate mind operating at a societal level.
00:36:25.420 --> 00:36:33.099
It is when a culture moves from committing sin in secret out of shame to legally protecting it, publicly celebrating it, and institutionalizing it.
00:36:33.500 --> 00:36:40.860
When wrong is officially codified as right and rebellion becomes a celebrated identity, the society is no longer just sick.
00:36:40.940 --> 00:36:41.900
It is spiritually dead.
00:36:42.300 --> 00:36:42.539
Okay.
00:36:43.099 --> 00:36:45.019
We really need to pause and take a breath here.
00:36:45.260 --> 00:36:45.740
Yeah, it's a lot.
00:36:45.980 --> 00:36:55.740
Because if you are listening to this right now and you've been following the ironclad logic of the sermon up to this point, it is an incredibly bleak, suffocating picture.
00:36:56.059 --> 00:37:02.380
We have humanity actively, violently suppressing the truth, holding the beach ball underwater.
00:37:02.539 --> 00:37:02.700
Yeah.
00:37:03.019 --> 00:37:17.099
We have them ignoring the massive, undeniable billboard of creation, walking down a seven-step staircase of ingratitude and vain imaginations, ultimately trading the glorious, demanding reality of the architect for the pathetic worship of the wallpaper.
00:37:17.420 --> 00:37:18.380
It's a dark descent.
00:37:18.780 --> 00:37:31.099
And then we have the passive wrath of God taking the emergency brakes off the car, leading to unnatural passions, and finally a completely corrupted, reprobate moral operating system that not only practices its own destruction, but legally protects and celebrates it.
00:37:31.420 --> 00:37:34.139
It is a 24-point terminal, hopeless diagnosis.
00:37:34.539 --> 00:37:37.500
So if this is the disease, what on earth is the cure?
00:37:37.659 --> 00:37:38.380
Is there a cure?
00:37:38.780 --> 00:37:44.860
And this is the exact moment where the sermon, following Paul's rhetorical masterclass, pivots entirely.
00:37:45.179 --> 00:37:45.579
Okay, good.
00:37:45.659 --> 00:37:46.300
We need a pivot.
00:37:46.619 --> 00:38:01.579
Because Paul, having meticulously, ruthlessly established that humanity is universally guilty and com struct structurally incapable of fixing its own corrupted operating system, introduces the only possible antidote in Romans 1.1 theory.
00:38:03.099 --> 00:38:07.420
But it's absolutely crucial to understand how the sermon frames the gospel here.
00:38:07.579 --> 00:38:12.139
It is not presented as a new interesting philosophy to rival Plato or Aristotle.
00:38:12.380 --> 00:38:12.860
No, not at all.
00:38:13.099 --> 00:38:18.220
It's not presented as a self-help seminar or a set of moral advice on how to be a nicer, more productive citizen.
00:38:18.619 --> 00:38:18.780
No.
00:38:18.940 --> 00:38:24.539
The text focuses intensely on the specific Greek word Paul uses for power in that famous verse.
00:38:24.780 --> 00:38:25.420
Dunamis.
00:38:25.900 --> 00:38:31.579
Paul says, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the dunamis of God to salvation for everyone who believes.
00:38:31.900 --> 00:38:34.300
Dunamis, that's the root where we get the English word dynamite.
00:38:34.700 --> 00:38:35.019
Exactly.
00:38:35.099 --> 00:38:37.579
It implies explosive, raw, divine energy.
00:38:37.740 --> 00:38:42.059
It is an active, transformative, miraculous force, not a passive set of intellectual ideas.
00:38:42.220 --> 00:38:47.260
The sermon points out a beautiful, stark historical contrast here to emphasize this point.
00:38:47.500 --> 00:38:50.220
Paul is writing this letter to the church in Rome.
00:38:50.460 --> 00:38:53.579
He knew exactly what Rome looked like and what it represented.
00:38:53.820 --> 00:39:03.420
He had seen the magnificent marble temples, the unmatched architectural prestige, the unassailable military might, and the philosophical dominance of the Roman Empire.
00:39:03.659 --> 00:39:04.220
They had it all.
00:39:04.619 --> 00:39:09.260
Rome had all the power, all the dunamis of the known human world.
00:39:09.659 --> 00:39:13.659
They had the Pax Romana, they had the roads, the legions, the wealth.
00:39:13.820 --> 00:39:20.940
But the sermon points out that Rome, with all its marble and gold, had no power to save a single human soul from the reprobate mind.
00:39:21.179 --> 00:39:21.420
None.
00:39:21.659 --> 00:39:25.260
All that incredible marble was just a beautiful, highly organized graveyard.
00:39:25.659 --> 00:39:26.220
Precisely.
00:39:26.380 --> 00:39:30.700
That's why Paul boldly states, I am not ashamed of the gospel.
00:39:31.099 --> 00:39:33.740
People in Rome might have thought his message was pathetic.
00:39:33.900 --> 00:39:36.300
It was centered on a crucified Jewish carpenter.
00:39:36.460 --> 00:39:42.059
It lacked the philosophical sophistication of the Greek academies or the political violent power of the Roman Caesars.
00:39:42.460 --> 00:39:47.099
But Paul knew that his seemingly simple message carried the very force of heaven.
00:39:47.340 --> 00:39:51.579
It was the only thing that could actually fix the corrupted kernel of the human soul.
00:39:51.820 --> 00:39:53.019
The sermon brings back Dr.
00:39:53.179 --> 00:39:56.380
Stifler here to outline the precise mechanics of this cure.
00:39:56.539 --> 00:39:59.579
He calls them the three pillars of Romans 1.1 scene.
00:39:59.740 --> 00:40:02.059
First, the effect, which is salvation.
00:40:02.300 --> 00:40:03.740
Second, the extent.
00:40:03.980 --> 00:40:05.260
It is worldwide.
00:40:05.420 --> 00:40:07.900
To the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
00:40:07.980 --> 00:40:10.220
It breaks through all ethnic and religious barriers.
00:40:10.780 --> 00:40:13.340
And third, the condition, faith.
00:40:13.500 --> 00:40:15.659
It is limited strictly to everyone who believes.
00:40:16.380 --> 00:40:22.300
The expert handling of this theology in this sermon clarifies a point that many modern people misunderstand.
00:40:22.539 --> 00:40:26.619
Salvation isn't just presented as a get out of hell free card or a ticket to the afterlife.
00:40:26.860 --> 00:40:27.420
What is it then?
00:40:27.659 --> 00:40:31.420
It's presented as a comprehensive multi-stage timeline of transformation.
00:40:31.579 --> 00:40:38.460
The text describes it using three massive theological concepts: justification, sanctification, and glorification.
00:40:38.860 --> 00:40:44.220
Or as it's practically phrased, I have been saved, I am being saved, and I shall be saved.
00:40:44.619 --> 00:40:48.700
Let's break those down because they directly counter the diagnosis we just spent the last hour exploring.
00:40:48.860 --> 00:40:50.539
What is the mechanism of justification?
00:40:50.619 --> 00:40:55.099
Aaron Powell Justification is the immediate legal declaration of righteousness.
00:40:55.260 --> 00:40:57.179
It answers the guilt of the Gentile world.
00:40:57.500 --> 00:40:57.579
Okay.
00:40:57.900 --> 00:40:59.260
You were guilty in the courtroom.
00:40:59.500 --> 00:41:05.900
Justification is the judge banging the gavel and declaring you legally innocent, entirely based on the merit of Christ.
00:41:06.139 --> 00:41:08.300
That happens the moment of belief.
00:41:09.099 --> 00:41:10.380
I have been saved.
00:41:10.860 --> 00:41:11.019
Okay.
00:41:11.099 --> 00:41:15.099
So the legal problem is solved, but my operating system is still glitchy.
00:41:15.179 --> 00:41:17.579
I still have a reprobate mind pulling at me.
00:41:17.740 --> 00:41:19.260
That's where sanctification comes in, right?
00:41:19.500 --> 00:41:19.740
Exactly.
00:41:19.900 --> 00:41:22.460
Sanctification is the ongoing lifelong process.
00:41:22.619 --> 00:41:23.659
I am being saved.
00:41:23.820 --> 00:41:32.940
It is the Holy Spirit actively rewriting the corrupted code, patching the OS, and slowly conforming the mind and behavior back to the original design of the architect.
00:41:33.260 --> 00:41:33.900
And glorification.
00:41:34.220 --> 00:41:37.420
Glorification is the final future promise I shall be saved.
00:41:37.579 --> 00:41:42.220
It is the ultimate removal of not just the guilt and power of sin, but the very presence of it.
00:41:42.539 --> 00:41:43.179
That's the end goal.
00:41:43.420 --> 00:41:43.579
Yeah.
00:41:43.659 --> 00:41:51.500
It's getting a brand new uncorrupted hardware system, a resurrected body that perfectly matches the newly rewritten software of the soul.
00:41:51.740 --> 00:41:55.019
It is the complete final triumph over the descent of man.
00:41:55.500 --> 00:41:58.300
Which brings us to the brilliant closing analogy of the sermon.
00:41:58.539 --> 00:42:11.500
And I genuinely love this because it takes all this heavy ancient Greek theology, all this talk of dunamis and justification, and drops it right onto a modern American playing field, the football analogy.
00:42:11.900 --> 00:42:19.980
It's a very practical, grounded way to summarize the immense danger of missing the entire point of this theological architecture.
00:42:20.380 --> 00:42:25.099
Elder Tolliver says, imagine you are going to a massive game of American football.
00:42:25.260 --> 00:42:30.139
You can have the absolute best stadium in the world built with billions of dollars.
00:42:30.300 --> 00:42:33.340
You can have the perfect million-dollar artificial turf.
00:42:33.740 --> 00:42:39.579
You can recruit the biggest athletes, put on the shiny helmets, strap up the sophisticated pads, lace up the cleats.
00:42:39.900 --> 00:42:47.179
You can have 80,000 screaming fans in the stands, a marching band playing fight songs, and professional referees blowing whistles on the field.
00:42:47.420 --> 00:42:48.300
It's a huge spectacle.
00:42:48.700 --> 00:42:49.340
Exactly.
00:42:49.579 --> 00:42:56.700
But if you don't have the actual football, that little unimpressive piece of leather pig skin, you don't have a game.
00:42:56.860 --> 00:43:01.980
You just have a bunch of grown men running around in costumes, smashing into each other, wasting a Saturday afternoon.
00:43:02.380 --> 00:43:10.300
Because every single action, every rule, every point on that field is entirely defined by its relationship to the ball.
00:43:10.539 --> 00:43:17.260
A touchdown, a first down, an interception, being off the it all depends on where that specific ball is and who possesses it.
00:43:17.420 --> 00:43:19.820
The stadium is irrelevant without it.
00:43:20.300 --> 00:43:24.860
This football analogy actually completely indicts modern religious practice, doesn't it?
00:43:25.019 --> 00:43:25.500
Oh, absolutely.
00:43:25.820 --> 00:43:37.019
Tolliver's basically saying you can have the massive megachurch building, you can have the rock concert worship band, you can have the polished sermons, the youth groups, the charitable programs, you can wear the uniform of religion perfectly.
00:43:37.260 --> 00:43:44.220
But without this dunamis power, without the actual gospel of justification and sanctification, it's just alarping.
00:43:44.300 --> 00:43:45.420
It's live action role-playing.
00:43:45.740 --> 00:43:50.059
I think that is the exact devastating point he is driving at.
00:43:50.220 --> 00:43:53.579
It serves as a dire warning against religious externalism.
00:43:53.740 --> 00:44:00.619
The sermon makes the point that you can learn to speak the right Christian ease, you can memorize the liturgy, you can sit in the pew every Sunday.
00:44:00.780 --> 00:44:09.099
But if you don't have the gospel, if you don't have that explosive power of God acting as the literal center of your existence, you just have empty religious practice.
00:44:09.340 --> 00:44:10.860
The gospel is the ball.
00:44:11.099 --> 00:44:22.220
Without it, humanity, even religious humanity, is still just trapped in the disease, holding the beach ball of truth underwater, pretending they know how to save themselves through their own moral effort.
00:44:22.539 --> 00:44:27.820
It aggressively strips away all the pretense and all the comfort of casual religion.
00:44:27.980 --> 00:44:36.139
You either have the power of God operating in you, rewriting your corrupted code, or you are running on a terminal operating system heading for a crash.
00:44:36.380 --> 00:44:39.900
There's absolutely no middle ground in this theological framework.
00:44:40.300 --> 00:44:41.179
None whatsoever.
00:44:41.340 --> 00:44:44.300
The diagnosis of Romans 1 is absolute and universal.
00:44:45.019 --> 00:44:48.940
Therefore, the cure in Romans 1.1c must be absolute and exclusive.
00:44:49.179 --> 00:44:53.500
You cannot fix a terminal disease with a band-aid, and you cannot play football without the ball.
00:44:53.820 --> 00:45:01.340
Well, as we begin to wrap up this incredibly dense, challenging deep dive, I want to synthesize the massive journey this text has taken us on today.
00:45:01.579 --> 00:45:13.579
We started by looking at humanity not as innocent victims of ignorance, but as active rebels, exerting exhausting effort to suppress the truth, holding it down like a beach ball because acknowledging it would demand total surrender.
00:45:13.820 --> 00:45:31.179
We explored how humanity ignored the giant, undeniable courtroom billboard of creation, walking down a tragic seven-step staircase of ingratitude and vain imaginations, ultimately trading the glorious, demanding reality of the architect for the safe, silent worship of the wallpaper.
00:45:31.500 --> 00:45:50.619
We examined the sobering, terrifying concept of God's passive wrath, understanding that it's not petty thunderbolts, but the deliberate removal of his restraining hand, taking the emergency brakes off the car, and letting a rebellious humanity experience the full, devastating, unfiltered consequences of its own unnatural desires.
00:45:51.019 --> 00:46:04.539
Which culminated in the terrifying reality of the retrobate mind, a society functioning with a completely corrupted moral operating system that not only practices its own self-destruction, but legally protects, institutionalizes, and celebrates it as progress.
00:46:05.179 --> 00:46:18.380
And finally, we saw Paul's dramatic pivot to the only proposed cure for this terminal condition the dynamite, the dunamis power of the gospel, which brings justification, sanctification, and glorification, the only football that actually matters on the field of life.
00:46:18.860 --> 00:46:29.019
It is a sweeping, comprehensive, and uncompromising worldview that attempts to explain the entirety of the human condition, from the dawn of history to the headlines in today's newspaper.
00:46:29.340 --> 00:46:33.659
And so as we close, I want to bring this all the way back to you, the listener, right where you are.
00:46:33.820 --> 00:46:53.260
Because whether you approach a text like this as a devout, practicing believer seeking to understand your own faith, whether you are a curious skeptic looking in from the outside at a major pillar of Western thought, or simply a student of cultural history trying to understand the shifts in our society, a sermon like this forces us to examine something deeply profound.
00:46:53.740 --> 00:46:54.460
It really does.
00:46:54.780 --> 00:47:10.380
It forces us to look at the foundational agonizing tension between our relentless desire for complete human autonomy, our desperate desire to be the undisputed captains of our own souls, and the concept of an objective, divine moral order that claims to own us.
00:47:10.619 --> 00:47:22.700
It asks us to look at the chaos, the despair, and the unraveling of the modern world, and genuinely consider what actually happens when a society completely, intentionally untethers itself from its traditional moral anchors.
00:47:22.940 --> 00:47:29.500
Are the things we confidently label as progress and liberation sometimes just the terrifying reality of the brake pedal being completely removed?
00:47:29.900 --> 00:47:35.340
It demands that we rigorously interrogate our own modern definitions of freedom, justice, and judgment?
00:47:35.900 --> 00:47:36.380
It does.
00:47:36.539 --> 00:47:43.900
And so I want to leave you with a final slightly uncomfortable thought to mull over, something that builds on everything we've discussed today.
00:47:44.380 --> 00:48:08.139
If, as this ancient text so powerfully suggests, the absolute default human instinct is to hold the beach ball of truth underwater to protect our own autonomy, what uncomfortable demanding truths in our own modern, hyper-informed age might you be actively exhausting yourself to suppress right now, simply because letting them break the surface would demand a total radical change in how you live your life?
00:48:08.380 --> 00:48:11.019
That is a question that requires genuine courage to answer.
00:48:11.260 --> 00:48:11.820
It really is.
00:48:11.980 --> 00:48:15.900
Thank you for joining us on this intense exploration of the guilt of the Gentile world.
00:48:15.980 --> 00:48:18.059
We'll see you on the next deep dive.
00:48:44.300 --> 00:48:45.980
Do you have the right view of God?
00:48:46.139 --> 00:48:54.300
In today's culture, we're often led to believe we must choose between happiness and holiness, as if God's joy and God's justice are at odds.
00:48:54.539 --> 00:49:02.059
We're tempted to embrace a version of God who is only gracious and loving, while quietly sidelining his holiness, righteousness, and judgment.
00:49:02.300 --> 00:49:07.099
But what if we saw God as he truly is, whole and not fragmented?
00:49:07.340 --> 00:49:15.420
What if we understood that every attribute of God, his mercy and his majesty, his love and his law must be held together in sacred tension?
00:49:15.659 --> 00:49:21.019
In the study of the Ten Commandments, Pastor Erwin Lutzer moves us beyond mere rule following.
00:49:21.179 --> 00:49:24.220
He invites us into the blazing presence of a holy God.
00:49:24.380 --> 00:49:30.460
Because unless we grasp the weight of his holiness, we will never fully treasure the depth of redemption offered at the cross.
00:49:30.780 --> 00:49:34.059
For any amend of donation to Biblical Talks, we will send you the book.
00:49:34.220 --> 00:49:37.260
Please go to biblical talks.com and click the Donate Here tab.
00:49:37.579 --> 00:49:39.820
Thank you for listening to Biblical Talks.