NBBS: Romans 1.18-32

Romans Chapter 1 vs 18-32

In this block of verses "The Guilt of Humankind" Paul gets to the iniquities of humankind, that people are sinful and wicked, and without God we are lost. The power and presence of God is evident in creation all around humankind but humankind has turned away from such authority relying instead upon their own very flawed authority. Paul goes on to make a few jabs at pagans that revere nature and things in nature, and men such as Caesar but the focus is on what happens when humankind turns its back on God. In this Paul points to the evident example of humans sinning in the very city in which the church that this letter is addressed to resides. Specifically Paul identifies that have exchanged the glory of God for "images" of men and animals. Paul also dealt with such idolatry in Ephesus where some craftsmen made silver idols to a Greek Goddess.

Notice how Paul does not illustrate God's wrath as some form of impending violent form of justice, rather, that God abandoned such individuals, "God gave them up". This is effectively hell, as some theologians assert that hell is not a place of fire and punishment, rather it is being removed from the love and light of God. In this version of Hell we are left to ourselves, to our own devices, suffering unto ourselves, to the wickedness that Paul begins with in verse 18. Humankind is rotten to the core as Paul goes on to indicate all sorts of immoral behavior that specifically point to the same sort of behavior regularly occurring in Rome in that day. We resort to hurting each other and without God we only have each other and therefore we all get hurt. The important point is that God gives us up to our own sin, and this is his wrath. The wrath does not come at some far off time after we are dead, we live it in the here and now. We have all heard the term, "we are our own worst enemy", so God need do no more than give us up to our own sinful ways. The good news is that the door is always open, the  moment we turn back to God the wrath ceases. It does not go on as some form of Latent Karma.
Paul brings this back in verse 28 pointing out that this all boils down to humankind's failure to acknowledge God as the creator of Heaven and Earth. Instead of worshiping the Creator, they worship the Creation and themselves.
In verses 29 through 31 Paul describes more wickedness evident in Roman culture, in this Paul cleverly describes how they break the commandments, "Murder", "Covetousness", as gossips and slanderers they bear false witness, as God-Haters the break the commandment that Jesus tells us is most high, and even includes "rebellious towards parents", that one is pretty obvious particularly to the Jewish members of the church in Rome, this is deliberate.
Paul describes in these verses that the Humankind, particularly the Roman pagans, has turned away from God, not just to worship His creation instead of 'He the Creator', but to even go as far as to reject all the commandments of God himself.
If the people in the Church of Rome were practicing some of the pagan religion alongside Christianity this section on the "Guilt of Humankind" would be sure to dissuade them from doing so. Renewing their faith and exclusively reverent worship of God. Paul well knows by now how to relate to both Jew and Gentile and this section of the letter illustrates this very well. But this is not the main point to be taken in this section of the letter. The main point, again, is that when we turn from God all we have is our own iniquities, and being born of sin we are left with nothing but sin. Sinless ways point to more sinless ways. It is the antithesis of "Faith for Faith" (1:17), might be written as: 'The wrath of God is revealed through sin by sin', and the signpost of sin points to a destination of death.

In our study session the topic of someone that actually dies because of their addiction. Be it alcoholism, meth, or other addictions and sinful ways the result very often is physical death of a person. The concern was whether such a death was some form of retributive punishment, the wrath of God. The answer was, both yes and no. Yes in the sense that God affords us free will and if we are going to drink ourselves to death then he is not going to come down from heaven and take the bottle out of our hands, however, 'no' in the sense that if we choose differently and acknowledge God's sovereignty in our lives and that we are not worthy of the gift of grace and have faith that it is given regardless we therefore allow God to act in our lives and turn us from the bottle. 'No' in the sense that God also gives us each other so that in times when we want to turn away from the addiction but are too weak to do so, someone will invariably act in our lives and offer the help we require. This is part of being Christian so that we can be made into God's instruments.  Lastly, 'no' in the sense that if these addictions do take our life, we can still come to Jesus after death.

One of the things of controversy within theological circles that gets touched on is the idea of preordained salvation. Paul is basically saying that humankind turned away from God and so God gave them up (to sin). Paul actually gives humanity a lot of power in the sense of free will by taking the first action, which is turning away from God. God's subsequent abandonment is His response.
Should we then take this as God giving up on us when we stumble ('when', not 'if')? Of course not! God is always calling us, we have to just listen for it and stop ignoring it. When we make the choice to turn away from sin by placing ourselves in a relationship subordinate to God's will (that's faith by the way), then God's call becomes much louder, "Faith for Faith" in verse 17. One would think that perhaps Paul supports the idea that it is up to us to respond to God's call to salvation.
If we are still confused on what we are to have faith in, it is faith that Jesus Christ paid for our sins with His blood so that we are justified, we are made worthy by the cross, our debt paid in full. That is what we are to have faith in.

Reference (NSRV)

The Guilt of Humankind

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse; 21 for though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools; 23 and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles.

24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the degrading of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

26 For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, 27 and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error.

28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind and to things that should not be done. 29 They were filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, they are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters,[f] insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious toward parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 They know God’s decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die—yet they not only do them but even applaud others who practice them.