Romans 1:25 “The Lie”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

²⁵Such ones exchanged the truth of God in the lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed into the ages. Amen.

This verse is of course continuing the context started back at least at v.18 and referring to those who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. These same people knew God but refused to acknowledge Him or be thankful to Him. They claimed to be wise but rather were made fools and exchanged the glory of God for idols. Because of all of this, the Lord allowed them to fall into sexual immorality and degrade themselves.

“Such ones” begins verse 25.

I can’t help but noticing even in the English that the Lord seems to be repeating Himself in these verses. At first glance, it seems like v.25 is just repeating what He has already said, particularly in v.23. This is one of those places where years ago I noticed that somehow the logic of the Bible is something different than ours. Rather than a nice, neat Roman numeral outline, it seemed to repeat itself, first saying things one way, then another. I now know it is written predominantly in fractal logic, the logic of repeating patterns, which is actually the logic of life itself. What is particularly fun and instructive is that usually, if we can see the pattern, it is instructive in itself.

Once I’ve studied through this, I’ll have to look more closely at the order. It wouldn’t surprise me if this is written in a chiasm or even chiasms within chiasms. Just wouldn’t surprise me. These verses are describing the very essence of life on a fallen earth and it won’t surprise me if it is written more as a painted picture than as a logical thesis.

Our verse is repeating the accusation that man in his wickedness turned from God to idols. In particular, in this verse it is described as “Exchanging the truth of God for the lie.” It is interesting to me that in the Greek, it is particularly “the” lie. It seems more natural in English to translate it as “a” lie: “exchanged for a lie.” To call it “the” lie, at least in my English brain, begs the question, “What lie?”

Frankly I’m not sure what to do with this. Often in Greek, as in English, the article “the” is used like “that,” so we might translate it “Exchanged the truth of God for that lie.” In such a case, it is called “the article of previous reference” and refers back to something said or established earlier. In English, we might get into “a” boat, but from then on it becomes “the” boat. Same thing here. In v.23, the Lord has already described how man exchanged the glory of God for images of men and creatures. Perhaps that is “the lie” or “that lie.” Throughout the OT, idolatry is often called a lie, so such language would not be at all odd to people familiar with the Scriptures.

I’m not sure that is the case here. It is interesting to note in II Thes. 2:5-12, we have a text describing the devolution of the Last Days which one will note very closely follows the same pattern (fractal) of Romans 1. There we have people who “refused to love the truth” so “God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie…” Notice there too it is literally “the” lie. That passage is describing Satanic deception related to the AntiChrist, so “the” lie, might be “that” lie, but I have to wonder. Maybe from God’s perspective, looking down from heaven and seeing all of human history from beginning to end, the Lord sees it all as Satan’s Edenic lie, “You shall be as gods.” Perhaps everything to Him is either truth or “the” lie – the lie that we don’t need Him, that we can ignore Him, that we can give our worship to anything we please, that we can live anyway we want.

I am tending to believe the latter. Sometimes we need to back up and be reminded what matters is how God sees the world, not us. Part of coming to the Bible is exactly that, to have Him raise me above my meager myopic perceptions, and to show me instead the wide vista of reality – of what He sees. What He sees is the truth. Too often, even my grasp of truth is limited to very small corners or edges of reality.

Perhaps we’d all be better off to see our choice as either to worship the true God or to believe “the lie.”  Makes me wonder if somehow “the” lie doesn’t camouflage itself by becoming a seemingly endless variety of “lies,” so that we think we have many choices, rather than seeing it as, in the end, a simple “either/or.”  

Even as I type, I’m leaning to the latter. I’m thinking perhaps it is a big deal to see the world, my world, this way. Needs to be pondered. I think I’ll pause here, ponder a while, and then come back to this verse. It obviously has more to say, but only after a little pondering on these thoughts.

Hmmmmm.