‘God Gave Them Over’

It is a terrible thing for God to abandon us to ourselves and our sin:

Most Christians would be aware of the fact that in Romans 1 we find the threefold phrase, “God gave them over”. In the important portion of Scripture, Romans 1:18-32 we find God’s judgment being poured out on the wicked and unrepentant. The three verses that contain these words are these:

-v. 24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity…

-v. 26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions….

-v. 28 God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done…

When sinners keep shaking their fists at God, and spurning his mercy, his grace does not go on forever. When it is clear that some folks want to have nothing to do with God, and prefer to spit in his face, then God gives them over – to their own sins and the consequences of their sins. I have often commented on this crucial text, such as in this article: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2014/03/18/our-abandoned-reprobate-society/

But the concept of God giving people over – and the very same phrase – is found in other parts of Scripture, most notably in the psalter and in the book of Acts. Let me examine each one in a bit more detail, and offer a few thoughts from other commentators.

Psalm 81:11-12

“But my people did not listen to my voice;
    Israel would not submit to me.
So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts,
    to follow their own counsels.”

The Old Testament of course records the sad history of the Israelites, in which God keeps doing great acts of grace and deliverance for them, but they end up forgetting his goodness and refusing to heed his voice and his commands. As we read in verses 13-14:

“Oh, that my people would listen to me,
    that Israel would walk in my ways!
I would soon subdue their enemies
    and turn my hand against their foes.”

One commentator that can be featured here is Richard Phillips. He reminds us that this was his own people that God was giving over, and he says this about this text:

This is often God’s judgment on rebellious people or nations: he gives us up to the very sins and idols that we have insisted on serving. J. J. Stewart Perowne refers to this as “the greatest and most fearful of all God’s punishments.” It is terrible because it submits us to the calamities of our own folly, yet it is often needed to break our will so that God may remold it in true faith.

 

Historically, this “giving over” took a number of forms….

He looks at how this played out in the book of Judges. He then reminds us of the parable of the prodigal son. And then he takes us back to Paul and Romans 1. He continues:

The widespread societal championing of homosexuality, as is now happening in the once-Christian West, is so rare in history that we should suspect it as a form of divine judgement. Paul confirms that a society that intentionally rejects God’s word for sinful pleasure can expect to be given over to the service of idolatry in this way.

 

There is good news, however, in that the grace of God endures for those who turn from their misery back to him in faith. In this light, how remarkable is the exclamation from the heart of the very God who has just spoken of giving Israel over to sin: “Oh, that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways!” (Ps. 81:13). Here is the heart of God for his people who turn away in sin and experience the chastisement that their restoration requires. It is the same heart that spoke with tears when Jesus looked over the city of Jerusalem that had rejected him and forfeited salvation: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem . . . ! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” (Matt. 23:37).

Yes that is the good news about this very bad news. God will judge sinners and chastise his people. But those who turn to him in faith and repentance can find restoration with God and hope for the future. We dare not keep spurning his offers of grace, mercy and pardon.

Acts 7:41-42

“And they made a calf in those days, and offered a sacrifice to the idol and were rejoicing in the works of their hands. But God turned away and gave them over to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets.”

This is taken from Stephen’s speech, given just before he was stoned to death by the angry crowd. Like the above passage, it is another depiction of the wayward, rebellious and idolatry-prone Israelites, and how God had to finally take steps to deal with this for his own namesake.

And Stephen goes on to quote Amos 5:25-27 on this matter.

‘Did you bring to me slain beasts and sacrifices,
    during the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?
You took up the tent of Moloch
    and the star of your god Rephan,
    the images that you made to worship;
and I will send you into exile beyond Babylon.’

Says F. F. Bruce:

The course of their idolatry, as traced throughout the OT, from the wilderness wanderings to the Babylonian exile, Stephen finds summed up in the words of Amos 5:25-27. The full-blown worship of the host of heaven, the planetary powers, to which Jerusalem gave itself over in the later years of the monarchy, was the fruition of that earlier idolatry in the wilderness. It was more than its fruition, in fact; it was the divinely-inflicted judgment for that rebellious attitude. “God turned, and gave them up to serve the host of heaven.” These are terrible words, but the principle that God gives men and women up to the due consequences of their settled choice is well established in Scripture. While Stephen asserts it here in relation to the Jewish people, Paul asserts it in relation to the Gentile world in Rom. 1:24, 26, 28.

And John Polhill says this about this handing over by God:

In Romans 1:24-28 Paul used the same word in a similar context of idolatry to describe how God “gave over” the Gentiles to such works of their hands and how this led to all kinds of sinful distortions. It is perhaps the most fearful judgment of all when God turns us over to ourselves and lets our own rebellious ways take their destructive natural course.

Yes quite right. We do NOT want to be turned over to ourselves. Yet we have popular preachers today telling us we must be true to ourselves, or we can have our best life now, or we must seek our own personal fulfilment, and so on. But what we really want, and what we really need is to be true to God, not ourselves. And the biblical recipe for this is for us to deny ourselves and say no to our desires.

Serving self never takes us to God, but away from him. And if we persist in this long enough, God will finally give us over and let us have our way. So we must never forget that God will ‘not always strive with man’ (Genesis 6:3). He will not always extend mercy to us.

I have shared a quote from R. C. Sproul many times now on this matter, but it is worth doing so again. And it does come from his commentary on Romans – in this case, from Romans 1:22-32:

We hear all the time about God’s infinite grace and mercy. I cringe when I hear it. God’s mercy is infinite insofar as it is mercy bestowed upon us by a Being who is infinite, but when the term infinite is used to describe his mercy rather than his person, I have problems with it because the Bible makes very clear that there is a limit to God’s mercy. There is a limit to his grace, and he is determined not to pour out his mercy on impenitent people forever. There is a time, as the Old Testament repeatedly reports, particularly in the book of the prophet Jeremiah, that God stops being gracious with people, and he gives them over to their sin.

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