Romans 1:27

1:27 suffered within themselves the penalty they deserved: When people abandon the Creator’s intentions, they are judged for their actions. This judgment can take many different forms, but the ultimate consequence is spiritual death (see 1:32).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Rom 1:27. Ἐξεκαύθησαν, were all in a flame) [burned] with an abominable fire (πυρώσει, viz., of lust.)—τὴν ἀσχημοσύνην, that which is unseemly) against which the conformation of the body and its members reclaims.—ἣν ἔδει) which it was meet [or proper], by a natural consequence.—τῆς πλάνης, of their error) by which they wandered away from God.—ἀπολαμβάνοντες), the antithetic word used to express the punishment of the Gentiles; as ἀποδώσει, that of the Jews, Rom 2:6. In both words, ἀπό has the same force.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rom_1:27

The apostle for the third time repeats the idea that the moral degradation of the heathen was a punishment of their apostasy from God. Receiving, he says, in themselves the meet recompense of their error. It is obvious from the whole context that πλάνη here refers to the sin of forsaking the true God; and it is no less obvious that the recompense or punishment of this apostasy was the moral degradation which he had just described.

The heathen themselves did not fail to see the intimate connection between impiety and vice. Silius, 4:794. Heu primae scelerum causae mortalibus aegris naturam nescire Deûm. Cicero De natura Deorum, 12. Haud scio, an, pietate adversus Deos sublatâ, fides etiam et societas, et una excellentissima virtus justitia tollatur. See Wetstein. Those therefore who would merge religion into morality, or who suppose that morality can be sustained without religion, are more ignorant than the heathen. They not only shut their eyes to all the teachings both of philosophy and of history, but array against themselves the wrath of God, who has revealed his purpose to abandon to the most degrading lusts those who apostatize from him.

Charles Hodge — Commentary on Romans (1835), First Corinthians (1857), and Ephesians (1856) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

A meet reward for their deserts.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet--alluding to the many physical and moral ways in which, under the righteous government of God, vice was made self-avenging.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 27. Receiving in themselves that recompense, &c.] Both the women and men, by their unnatural prostitutions, enervated their bodies, so that barrenness prevailed, and those disorders which are necessarily attendant on prostitution and sodomitical practices.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

27. Such a reward for their error as was meet. They indeed deserved to be blinded, so as to forget themselves, and not to see any thing befitting them, who, through their own malignity, closed their eyes against the light offered them by God, that they might not behold his glory: in short, they who were not ashamed to extinguish, as much as they could, the glory of God, which alone gives us light, deserved to become blind at noonday.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(27) In themselves—i.e., upon themselves, upon their own persons thus shamefully dishonoured.

That recompence of their error which was meet.—The “error” is the turning from God to idols. The “recompence of the error” is seen in these unnatural excesses to which the heathen have been delivered up.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And likewise also the men leaving the natural use of the women,.... The very sin of "sodomy" is here designed, so called from Sodom, the place where we first hear of it, Gen 19:5, the men of which place, because they

burned in their lust one towards another, as these Gentiles are said to do, God rained upon them fire and brimstone from heaven: an exceeding great sin this is, contrary to nature, dishonourable to human nature, and scandalous to a people and nation among whom it prevails, as it did very much in the Gentile world, and among their greatest philosophers; even those that were most noted for moral virtue are charged with it, as Socrates, Plato, Zeno, and others (m): it is a sin which generally prevails where idolatry and infidelity do, as among the Pagans of old, and among the Papists and Mahometans now; and never was it so rife in this nation as since the schemes of deism and infidelity have found such a reception among us. Thus God, because men dishonour him with their evil principles and practices, leaves them to reproach their own nature, and dishonour their own bodies:

men with men working that which is unseemly; and of which nothing like it is to be observed in the brutal world:

receiving in themselves the recompence of their error, which was meet: God punishes sin with sin; for as the Jews say (n), as

"one commandment draws on another, so one transgression draws on another; for the reward of the commandment is the commandment, and the reward of transgression is transgression.''

(m) A. Gellius Noct. Attic. l. 2. c. 18. Laert. Vit. Philosoph. l. 2. in Vit. Socrat. & l. 3. in Vit. Platon. (n) Pirke Abot, c. 4. sect. 2.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

Ver. 27. Leaving the natural] As at this day in the Levant, sodomy is held no sin. The Turkish pashas have many wives, but more catamites, {a} which are their serious loves. (Blount’s Voyage.)

Burned in their lust] Gr. εξεκαυσθησαν, "were scalded." Some men put off all manhood, become dogs, worse than dogs. Hence Deu 23:18; "The price of a dog," that is, of a sodomite, as Junius and Deodatus expound it.

{a} A boy kept for unnatural purposes. ŒD

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And likewise the men ... - The sin which is here specified is what was the shameful sin of Sodom, and which from that has been called sodomy. It would scarcely be credible that man had been guilty of a crime so base and so degrading, unless there was ample and full testimony to it. Perhaps there is no sin which so deeply shows the depravity of man as this; none which would so much induce one “to hang his head, and blush to think himself a man.” And yet the evidence that the apostle did not bring a railing accusation against the pagan world; that he did not advance a charge which was unfounded, is too painfully clear. It has been indeed a matter of controversy whether paederastry, or the love of boys, among the ancients was not a pure and harmless love, but the evidence is against it. (See this discussed in Dr. Leland’s Advantage and Necessity of Revelation, vol. i. 49-56.) The crime with which the apostle charges the Gentiles here was by no means confined to the lower classes of the people.

It doubtless pervaded all classes, and we have distinct specifications of its existence in a great number of cases. Even Virgil speaks of the attachment of Corydon to Alexis, without seeming to feel the necessity of a blush for it. Maximus Tyrius (Diss. 10) says that in the time of Socrates, this vice was common among the Greeks; and is at pains to vindicate Socrates from it as almost a solitary exception. Cicero (Tuscul. Ques. iv. 34) says, that “Dicearchus had accused Plato of it, and probably not unjustly.” He also says (Tuscul. Q. iv. 33), that the practice was common among the Greeks, and that their poets and great men, and even their learned men and philosophers, not only practiced, but gloried in it. And he adds, that it was the custom, not of particular cities only, but of Greece in general. (Tuscul. Ques. v. 20.) Xenophon says, that “the unnatural love of boys is so common, that in many places it is established by the public laws.”

He particularly alludes to Sparta. (See Leland’s Advantage, etc. i. 56.) Plato says that the Cretans practiced this crime, and justified themselves by the example of Jupiter and Ganymede. (Book of Laws, i.) And Aristotle says, that among the Cretans there was a law encouraging that sort of unnatural love. (Aristotle, Politic. b. ii. chapter 10.) Plutarch says, that this was practiced at Thebes, and at Elis. He further says, that Solon, the great lawgiver of Athens, “was not proof against beautiful boys, and had not courage to resist the force of love.” (Life of Solon.) Diogenes Laertius says that this vice was practiced by the Stoic Zeno. Among the Romans, to whom Paul was writing, this vice was no less common. Cicero introduces, without any mark of disapprobation, Cotta, a man of the first rank and genius, freely and familiarly owning to other Romans of the same quality, that this worse than beastly vice was practiced by himself, and quoting the authority of ancient philosophers in vindication of it. (De Natura Deorum, b. i. chapter 28.) It appears from what Seneca says (epis. 95) that in his time it was practiced openly at Rome, and without shame.

He speaks of flocks and troops of boys, distinguished by their colors and nations; and says that great care was taken to train them up for this detestable employment. Those who may wish to see a further account of the morality in the pagan world may find it detailed in Tholuck’s “Nature and moral Influence of Heathenism,” in the Biblical Repository, vol. ii., and in Leland’s Advantage and Necessity of the Christian Revelation. There is not the least evidence that this abominable vice was confined to Greece and Rome. If so common there, if it had the sanction even of their philosophers, it may be presumed that it was practiced elsewhere, and that the sin against nature was a common crime throughout the pagan world. Navaratte, in his account of the empire of China (book ii. chapter 6), says that it is extremely common among the Chinese. And there is every reason to believe, that both in the old world and the new, this abominable crime is still practiced. If such was the state of the pagan world, then surely the argument of the apostle is well sustained, that there was need of some other plan of salvation than was taught by the light of nature.

That which is unseemly - That which is shameful, or disgraceful.

And receiving in themselves ... - The meaning of this doubtless is, that the effect of such base and unnatural passions was, to enfeeble the body, to produce premature old age, disease, decay, and an early death. That this is the effect of the indulgence of licentious passions, is amply proved by the history of man. The despots who practice polygamy, and keep harems in the East, are commonly superannuated at forty years of age; and it is well known, even in Christian countries, that the effect of licentious indulgence is to break down and destroy the constitution. How much more might this be expected to follow the practice of the vice specified in the verse under examination! God has marked the indulgence of licentious passions with his frown. Since the time of the Romans and the Greeks, as if there had not been sufficient restraints before, he has originated a new disease, which is one of the most loathsome and distressing which has ever afflicted man, and which has swept off millions of victims. But the effect on the body was not all. It tended to debase the mind; to sink man below the level of the brute; to destroy the sensibility; and to “sear the conscience as with a hot iron.” The last remnant of reason and conscience, it would seem, must be extinguished it those who would indulge in this unnatural and degrading vice. See Suetonius’ Life of Nere, 28.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Receiving in themselves the recompense...due to their error. That is, were justly punished for their wilful blindness and error, by which they had worshipped and adored creatures, instead of the Creator, idols instead of the one true God. (Witham)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

This was the sin of the Sodomites of old, for which they were destroyed, Gen 19:5; see Lev 18:22. How meet was it that they who had forsaken the Author of nature, should be given up not to keep the order of nature; that they who had changed the glory of God into the similitude of beasts, should be left to do those things which beasts themselves abhorred! God only concurred as a just judge in punishing foregoing with following sins: see Rom 1:25.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet. By the "recompense" (antimisyian) is meant here, not any further result, such as disease or physical prostration, but the very fact of their being given up to a state in which they can crave and delight in such odious gratifications of unnatural lust. It is the antimisyia thv planhv autwn , the final judgment on them for going astray from God. And surely to the pure-minded there is no more evident token of Divine judgment than the spectacle of the unnatural cravings and indulgence of the sated sensualist.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Receiving the just recompense of their error - Their idolatry being punished with that unnatural lust, which was as horrible a dishonour to the body, as their idolatry was to God.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

27. These two verses describe a horrible state of humanity, cohabitation with animals, and other abominations unmentionable, peculiar to the inhabitants of Sodom and in the hell dens of many other cities in all ages. When I was in that country I went to the site of Sodom and Gomorra and found it all covered by the Dead Sea. Not only is the sea utterly desolate, no fish competent to live in its poisonous waters, but the surrounding country is all a burning desert waste without a drop of rain, whereas in the days of Abraham and Lot it was “well watered,” God having sent the withering desolation because of their wickedness. As this wicked age fast ripens for destruction, the horrors of Sodom are fast multiplying with the inventions of the age utilized by Satan. I write these pages in New York. A sanctified man, saved out of the horrors of slumdom, tells me that we need not leave the American metropolis to find all the horrors of ancient Sodom.

William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another, men with men working unseemliness, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was due . [In this horrible picture Paul shows in what way they dishonored themselves among themselves. The sin of sodomy was common among idolaters. The apostle tells us that this depth of depravity was a just punishment for their departure from God. Petronius, Suetonius, Martial, Seneca, Virgil, Juvenal, Lucian and other classic writers verify the statements of Paul. Some of their testimonies will be found in Macknight, Stuart and other larger commentaries.]

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

27. ἀπολαμβάνοντες, ‘receiving as due.’

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

27.] τὴν ἀσχημ. perhaps, as De W., ‘the (well-known, too frequent) indecency,’—‘cui ipsa corporis … conformatio reclamat,’ Bengel: but more probably the article is only generic, as in 2Pe 1:5-8 repeatedly.

τὴν ἀντιμισθίαν] The Apostle treats this ἀτιμία into which they fell, as a consequence of, a retribution for, their departure from God into idolatry,—with which in fact it was closely connected. This shame, and not its consequences, which are not here treated of, is the ἀντιμισθία of their πλάνη, their aberration from the knowledge of God, which they received. This is further shewn by ἣν ἔδει in the past tense. εἰ λὰρ καὶ μὴ γέεννα ἦν, μηδὲ κόλασις ἠπείλητο, τοῦτο πάσης κολάσεως χεῖρον ἦν. εἰ δὲ ἥδονται, τὴν προσθήκην μοι λέγεις τῆς τιμωρίας. Chrys. Hom. v. p.457.

ἐν ἑαυτοῖς, in their own persons, viz. by their degradation even below the beasts.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

27. ἀπολαμβάνοντες: ἀπολ. = (i) ‘to receive back’ (as in Luk 6:34); (ii) ‘to receive one’s due’ (as in Luk 23:41); and so here.

27. ἡ γὰρ τῶν ἀνωνύμων εἰδώλων θρησκεία παντὸς ἀρχὴ κακοῦ καὶ αἰτία καὶ πέρας ἐστίν.

It will be seen that while on the one hand there can be no question of direct quotation, on the other hand the resemblance is so strong both as to the main lines of the argument (i. Natural religion discarded, ii. idolatry, iii. catalogue of immorality) and in the details of thought and to some extent of expression as to make it clear that at some time in his life St. Paul must have bestowed upon the Book of Wisdom a considerable amount of study.

[Compare the note on 9:19-29 below, also an essay by E. Grafe in Theol. Abhandlungen C. von Weizsäcker gewidmet. Freiburg, i. B. 1892, p. 251 ff. In this essay will be found a summary of previous discussions of the question and an estimate of the extent of St. Paul’s indebtedness which agrees substantially with that expressed above. It did not extend to any of the leading ideas of Christianity, and affected the form rather than the matter of the arguments to which it did extend. Rom 1:18-32, Rom 9:19-23 are the most conspicuous examples.]

* In this one instance we have ventured to break up the long and heavily-weighted sentence in the Greek, and to treat its two main divisions separately. But the second of these is not in the strict sense a parenthesis: the construction of the whole paragraph is continuous.

&c. always qualify the word which precedes, not that which follows:

D Cod. Claromontanus

E Cod. Sangermanensis

G Cod. Boernerianus

Ambrstr. Ambrosiaster.

B Cod. Vaticanus

F Cod. Augiensis

al. alii, alibi.

pauc. pauci.

Vulg. Vulgate.

codd. codices.

Chrys. Chrysostom.

Aug. Augustine.

Tisch. Tischendorf.

WH. Westcott and Hort.

אԠCod. Sinaiticus

P Cod. Porphyrianus

Harcl. Harclean.

Theodrt. Theodoret.

RV. Revised Version.

Orig. Origen.

Orig.-lat. Latin Version of Origen

Amb. Ambrose.

Boh. Bohairic.

Goth. Gothic.

A Cod. Alexandrinus

L Cod. Angelicus

Hieron. Jerome.

K Cod. Mosquensis

Sah. Sahidic.

Pesh. Peshitto.

Arm. Armenian.

Aeth. Ethiopic.

Lft. Lightfoot.

Eus. Eusebius.

Lips. Lipsius.

Beng. Bengel.

Lid. Liddon.

Wic. Wiclif.

Gif. Gifford.

om. omittit, omittunt, &c.

g Latin version of G

AV. Authorized Version.

* Biel (Lex. in LXX.) cites from Phavorinus the gloss, κλ., ἡ καλεστὴ καὶ ἡ ἐξοχωτάτη.

Rhem. Rheims (or Douay).

Mey. Meyer.

d Latin version of D

e Latin version of E

Va. Vaughan.

Tert. Tertullian.

Treg. Tregelles.

* The point is, however, beginning to attract some attention in Germany.

* Aristotle quotes the proverb ἐν δὲ δικαιοσύνῃ συλλήβδην πᾶσʼ ἀρετὴ ἔνι.

C Cod. Ephraemi Rescriptus

Euthym.-Zig. Euthymius Zigabenus.

Theoph. Theophylact.

De W. De Wette.

Go. Godet.

Oltr. Oltramare.

Fri. Fritzsche (C. F. A.).

Grm.-Thay. Grimm-Thayer’s Lexicon.

&c. always qualify the word which precedes, not that which follows:

Gif. Gifford.

Chrys. Chrysostom.

Euthym.-Zig. Euthymius Zigabenus.

* Similarly Adrian, an Antiochene writer (c. 440 a.d.) in his Εἰσαγωγὴ εἰς τὰς θείας γραφάς, a classified collection of figures and modes of speech employed in Holy Scripture, refers this verse to the head Τὴν ἐπὶ τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων κακῶν συγχώρησιν τοῦ Θεοῦ ὡς πρᾶξιν αὐτοῦ λέγει· ἐπειδὴ κωλῦσαι δυναμενος, τοῦτο οὐ ποιεῖ.

אԠCod. Sinaiticus

A Cod. Alexandrinus

B Cod. Vaticanus

C Cod. Ephraemi Rescriptus

D Cod. Claromontanus

c Cod. Sinaiticus, corrector c

E Cod. Sangermanensis

F Cod. Augiensis

G Cod. Boernerianus

K Cod. Mosquensis

L Cod. Angelicus

P Cod. Porphyrianus

Orig. Origen.

Vulg. Vulgate.

WH. Westcott and Hort.

Va. Vaughan.

Lft. Lightfoot.

RV. Revised Version.

Harcl. Harclean.

Arm. Armenian.

Bas. Basil.

al. alii, alibi.

Tisch. Tischendorf.

Pesh. Peshitto.

Boh. Bohairic.

Cypr. Cyprian.

Ambrstr. Ambrosiaster.

Aug. Augustine.

Mey. Meyer.

Fri. Fritzsche (C. F. A.).

Oltr. Oltramare.

Lips. Lipsius.

Lid. Liddon.

Tyn. Tyndale.

Go. Godet.

Clem.-Rom. Clement of Rome.

am Cod. Amiatinus (Vulgate)

fuld Cod. Fuldensis (Vulgate)

Orig.-lat. Latin Version of Origen

* The more recent editors as a rule read ἰδιότητοςwith the uncials and Gen 1:26 f.; but it is by no means clear that they are right: Cod. 248 embodies very ancient elements and the context generally favours ἀϊδιότητος. It still would not be certain that St. Paul had this passage in his mind.

Method. Methodius.

Epiph. Epiphanius.

Clem.-Alex. Clement of Alexandria.

† The parallel here is not quite exact. St. Paul says, ‘They did know but relinquished their knowledge,’ Wisd. ‘They ought to have known but did not.’

‡ A. V. expands this as ‘[spiritual] fornication’; and so most moderns. But even so the phrase might have had something to do in suggesting the thought of St. Paul.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.