March 15 2026, Sunday School Lesson

God’s Wrath Revealed

Lesson Text: Romans 1:18-23

Related Scriptures: Psalm 19:1-6; 106:6-23; Acts 14:15-17; Ephesians 4:17-24; 2 Kings 17:6-20

TIME: A.D. 57

PLACE: from Corinth

Golden Text “For the wrath of God Is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness” (Romans 1:18)

Introduction

Romans 1:18 through 3:20 focuses on human sin. This tragic news makes the gospel’s good news the best news.

In our lesson passage (1:18-23), Paul provided a care analysis of human depravity and the tragic process by which the world had plunged itself into ruin. Paul showed how cultures had fully rejected God and how that rejection revealed itself in chaos, confusion, and unrestrained wickedness.

This thesis statement for the letter is found in verses 16-17, where Paul wrote, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ,” for the gospel is the power of God for salvation. It is not just an intellectual message but a message that saves from destruction it reveals righteousness by which sinners are acquitted and counted by God as just.

Verses 18-23 explain why all people need God’s savings, and sinners need to be saved (vs. 18). And second, God reveals His righteousness in the gospel and His wrath against sinners from heaven. Paul revealed both the tragic condition of the human race (vss. 18-20) and their terrifying culpability (vss. 21-23).

LESSON OUTLINE

1. THE TRAGIC CONDITION OF THE HUMAN REACE – Rom. 1:18-20

2. THE TERRIFYING CULPABILITY OF THE HUMAN RACE – Rom. 1:21-23

QUESTIONS

1. What is Paul’s thesis statement for the whole book of Romans?

2. Why were the earliest Christian churches predominately Jewish?

3. What political event brought Priscilla and Aquila to move from Rome to Ephesus, where they partnered with Paul in ministry?

4. Why do people need to good news of the gospel?

5. What did Paul mean when he said that humans suppress the truth of God’s revelation?

6. On what basis do all people know the truth about God?

7. Why do humans have no excuse for not knowing God?

8. What reason might have incorrectly been offered to excuse Gentile guilt?

9. What makes idolatry humanity’s deepest problem?

10. Why is Paul motivated to show how both Jews and Gentiles are under condemnation and deserving of the wrath of God?

ANSWERS

1. The thesis statement for the letter is found in verses 16-17, where Paul wrote, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ,” for the gospel is the power for salvation.

2. Acts 2 records how large numbers of Jews were in Jerusalem for Pentecost. When they heard the apostles preaching, they repented and believed in the good news. After the festival, they returned to their native homes in distant lands, spreading the gospel everywhere. As a consequence, those new congregations were typically dominated by Jews, with Gentiles in the minority. This was likely true in Rome, although Romes’ status as the empirical capital assured that Gentiles were substantially represented in those earliest churches.

3. During Claudius’s reign over the empire (A.D. 41 -54 ), he issued an edict to expel the Jews from Rome. The edict was the reason Priscilla and Aquila moved from Rome to Ephesus, where they partnered in ministry with Paul (chap. 18).

4. The first reason Paul supplied for why sinners so badly need to be saved by the gospel is the wrath of God. In verses 17 and 18, Paul juxtaposed the good news of the gospel with the bad news of God anger currently being revealed against human ungodliness and unrighteousness.

5. To suppress is to willfully hold down or restrain. And sadly, all people naturally suppress the truth in unrighteousness. That is, the spiritually depraved human race is trying to hold back every trace of the truth through acts of unrighteousness

6. The truth suppressed by humans is that which they already know about God. Such truth, however, is not hidden, obscure, or hard to find. God made it evident to humans. Paul’s point was clear: there is both internal and external awareness of God in every human being. While this knowledge can be denied, rejected, twisted, contorted, and misrepresented by the individual sinner Paul’s contention was that all people know the truth of God.

7. Although the witness of God in creation can be denied or misinterpreted, Paul contended that the quality of this witness is such that God and His character are both clearly perceptible and understandable. This insistent reality leaves humans without excuse in their unreasonable denial of God. This, no one in history can legitimately claim ignorance. What God made in creation mediates the reality of God Himself to the minds and consciences of human being.

8. Some might have argued that because Gentiles were not given the law, they might have argued that because Gentiles were not given the law, they might be excused from God’s judgment. Not so, said Paul. God spoke loudly to all people through creation so that they are without excuse.

9. Paul thus identified the deepest problem of humanity. Humans have traded the God of matchless beauty and supremacy for what is created, temporal, corruptible, and perishable. This is the ultimate outrage of human history and the definition of human unrighteousness described in verse 18. It is precisely why the wrath of God burns against humanity and why the soul-saving gospel of Christ is so urgent, still the gospel of Christ is so urgent. Still, the gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes.

10. Again, if both Jews and Gentiles are sinful and condemned in the same way, Paul was then able to argue that Jews and Gentiles are both saved in the same way, through faith in Christ.