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Examined Doctrine
PASSAGE · BSB

Romans 1

12 positions in the corpus lean on this chapter. Cited verses are marked.

1Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, and set apart for the gospel of God—

2the gospel He promised beforehand through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures,

3regarding His Son, who was a descendant of David according to the flesh,

4and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by His resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.

5Through Him and on behalf of His name, we received grace and apostleship to call all those among the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith.

6And you also are among those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.

7To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

8First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being proclaimed all over the world.

9God, whom I serve with my spirit in preaching the gospel of His Son, is my witness how constantly I remember you

10in my prayers at all times, asking that now at last by God’s will I may succeed in coming to you.

11For I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you,

12that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith.

13I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, how often I planned to come to you (but have been prevented from visiting until now), in order that I might have a harvest among you, just as I have had among the other Gentiles.

14I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish.

15That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are in Rome.

16I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, then to the Greek.

17For the gospel reveals the righteousness of God that comes by faith from start to finish, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”

18The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness.

19For what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.

20For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from His workmanship, so that men are without excuse.

21For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking and darkened in their foolish hearts.

22Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools,

23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images of mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

24Therefore God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to impurity for the dishonoring of their bodies with one another.

25They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is forever worthy of praise! Amen.

26For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.

27Likewise, the men abandoned natural relations with women and burned with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

28Furthermore, since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, He gave them up to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.

29They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. They are gossips,

30slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, and boastful. They invent new forms of evil; they disobey their parents.

31They are senseless, faithless, heartless, merciless.

32Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things are worthy of death, they not only continue to do these things, but also approve of those who practice them.

Who leans on it

Calvin on natural / general revelationPRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°Creation is an objectively adequate display: God's glory is 'engraven in characters so bright, so distinct, and so illustrious, that none, however dull and illiterate, can plead ignorance as their excuse' (Institutes I.v…Calvin on the nature of saving faithPRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°Faith is a certainty about God's disposition toward the believer, not a bare crediting of propositions. Calvin builds the definition by elimination in Institutes III.ii.7: knowledge of God's will is not enough, because m…Chrysostom on natural / general revelationPRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°Creation is God's own teaching, addressed to everyone without distinction — "both wise, and unlearned, and Scythian, and barbarian." The knowledge of God was placed in men from the beginning; what went wrong was that the…M. Heiser on natural / general revelationDISPUTED READINGNO FIT°Denies that general revelation is sufficient for salvation — creation yields knowledge about God but not the plan of salvation — yet also holds that some who never heard the gospel will be saved, on the criterion of beli…Second London Baptist Confession on natural / general revelationPRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°Chapter 1.1 grants that creation and providence genuinely manifest God's goodness, wisdom and power, and that they do so far enough to leave every person inexcusable — but not far enough to save. Chapter 20, which has no…Luther on the nature of saving faithPRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°Faith is trust that grasps Christ and, in grasping him, receives what is his. Luther's image is marriage: Christ takes the soul's sin, death and hell as his own and gives her his righteousness, life and salvation, so tha…Luther on natural / general revelationPRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°Luther's theology of the cross is built against natural theology. Reading God's invisible attributes off creation and history is exactly what he says disqualifies a man from being called a theologian; that wisdom is 'com…John Owen on natural / general revelationPRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°The works of God in creation are sufficient to convict, and the failure is culpable rather than evidential. Owen holds that the moral law was "implanted in his nature and written in his heart by creation" and binds all m…R.C. Sproul on natural / general revelationPRIMARY SOURCELEANS°Everyone possesses innate, universal knowledge of God via creation (the sensus divinitatis) — not dim or partial, but 'clearly perceived' per Romans 1:20. Explicitly rejects the idea that sin obscures this revelation fro…Charles Haddon Spurgeon on natural / general revelationPRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°Preached this directly in 'Inexcusable Irreverence and Ingratitude' (Sermon #2257, on Romans 1:20-21, 1890): general revelation in creation leaves every person without excuse, and the failure is ingratitude and willful s…Westminster Confession on natural / general revelationPRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°The Confession opens on this question rather than on Scripture, and gives both halves of the stance in one sentence: creation and providence manifest God far enough to leave men inexcusable, and not far enough to save. W…Westminster Confession on divine plurality & the unseen realmDISPUTED READINGNOT FRAMEDThe question is never posed. Chapter 2 is titled 'Of God, and of the Holy Trinity' and treats divine unity, simplicity and the three persons; the elohim of Psalm 82 and Deuteronomy 32 are nowhere in view, and neither pas…