What is God doing when He 'gives them up' in Romans 1?
When God 'gives them up,' He is judicially causing mankind to go deeper into sin. Because of their idolatry, unbelief, and rebellion, God gives them over to uncleanness and then to even lower levels of sin, as Romans 1 teaches. This is judicial judgment.
Les explains that Romans 1 takes us back to the Tower of Babel, where idolatry, paganism, and the roots of the Oriental religions began. Mankind changed the glory of the incorruptible God into images of corruptible man, birds, beasts, and creeping things. Because they fell into idolatry, God gave them up to uncleanness. Les says this is God judicially causing mankind to go even deeper into sin. When they went into a lower level of sin, God put them even lower in verse 26 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 'God gave them up' mean in Romans 1:24?
When mankind turned his back on the one true God and began to worship idols and things made with men's hands, God gave them up, and this 'gave them up' was an act.