Why did God give mankind up to uncleanness in Romans 1:24?
God gave mankind up to uncleanness because they had changed the glory of the incorruptible God into images of corruptible man, birds, beasts, and creeping things. Their fall into idolatry prompted this judicial action, and God caused them to go deeper into sin.
Les takes the question back to Romans chapter 1 and connects it to the Tower of Babel, where the roots of Oriental religions, idolatry, and paganism began. In verse 23, mankind changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man, birds, four-footed beasts, and creeping things. They dreamed up every kind of god imaginable. Les illustrates this with Egypt: when Israel came out under Moses, every plague was directed against a god of Egypt, even the flies, frogs, and Nile. Because mankind had become saturated with the worship of man-made idols, verse 24 says that because of their falling into idolatry, God gave them up to uncleanness. God was judicially causing mankind to go even deeper into sin. Then, when they went into a lower level of sin, verse 26 shows God put them even lower, because of their behavior, unbelief, and rebellion.
Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:
More Questions
What does Romans 1:24's 'God gave them up to uncleanness' refer to?
In Romans 1:24, 'God gave them up to uncleanness' refers to normal sexual immorality between men and women, not same-sex acts.
What does Les say the earlier sexual immorality was in Romans 1 before verse 25?
Les identifies the level of immorality from which the people moved into exchanging God's truth as sexual immorality between male and female.