Romans 1:23

So blinded were their hearts that they altered the majesty of the invisible God, which they knew from the things which he had made, not into men but, what is worse and is an inexcusable offense, into the image of men, so that the form …

He who changes, before changing, has in himself something different. They too, then, had knowledge, but they destroyed it, and, having desired to have something different in place of what they had, they lost even what they had. They rendered the glory of the incorruptible …

Everything that is adored other than God is either an intellectual creature, such as angels and demons; or a corporeal creature, such as heaven and earth and water and the like; or it is a figment of the human mind. Concerning idolatry with respect to …

Then when he says and they changed the glory, he mentions the punishment for the gentiles' sin of ungodliness. First, in regard to sinning against God's glory; second, how they sinned against the truth of nature itself, at who changed the truth. In regard to …

And changed the glory of the incorruptible God,.... God is incorruptible and immortal in his nature, and so is opposed to all corruptible creatures and things: he has a glory which is essential to him, and a manifestative one in the creatures, and which is relative, and of right belongs to him: his absolute essential glory cannot be changed, cannot be taken away from him, nor given to another; but his relative glory may be said to be changed, when another is worshipped in his stead, and called by his name.

We shall the less wonder at the inefficacy of these natural discoveries to prevent the idolatry of the Gentiles if we remember how prone even the Jews, who had scripture light to guide them, were to idolatry; so miserably are the degenerate sons of men plunged in the mire of sense.

), by which, as much as in them lay, they changed the glory of the incorruptible God. They ascribed a deity to the most contemptible creatures, and by them represented God. It was the greatest honour God did to man that he made man in the image of God; but it is the greatest dishonour man has done to God that he has made God in the image of man.

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — leading-punctuation+unbalanced-parens

Here are three degrees of ungodliness and of punishment: the first is described, ver. 21- 24; the second, ver. 25-27; the third, in ver. 28, and following verses. The punishment in each case is expressed by God gave them up. If a man will not worship God as God, he is so left to himself that he throws away his very manhood.

quarantine:anchor (2026-07-29) — cites-ver-28-anchored-23-23

And changed - This does not mean that they literally “transmuted” God himself; but that in their views they exchanged him; or they changed him “as an object of worship” for idols. They produced, of course, no real change in the glory of the infinite God, but the change was in themselves. They forsook him of whom they had knowledge Rom 1:21, and offered the homage which was due to him, to idols.

And changed--or "exchanged." the glory of the uncorruptible God into--or "for" an image . . . like to corruptible man--The allusion here is doubtless to the Greek worship, and the apostle may have had in his mind those exquisite chisellings of the human form which lay so profusely beneath and around him as he stood on Mars' Hill; and "beheld their devotions." (See on Ac 17:29).

They changed the glory, etc. - The finest representation of their deities was in the human figure; and on such representative figures the sculptors spent all their skill; hence the Hercules of Farnese, the Venus of Medicis, and the Apollo of Belvidere. And when they had formed their gods according to the human shape, they endowed them with human passions; and as they clothed them with attributes of extraordinary strength, beauty, wisdom, etc., not having the true principles of morality, they represented them as slaves to the most disorderly and disgraceful passions; excelling in irregularities the most profligate of men, as possessing unlimited powers of sensual gratification. And to birds - As the eagle of Jupiter among the Romans, and the ibis and hawk among the Egyptians; which were all sacred animals. Four-footed beasts - As the apis or white ox among the Egyptians; from which the idolatrous Israelites took their golden calf. The goat, the monkey, and the dog, were also sacred animals among the same people. Creeping things - Such as the crocodile and scarabeus, or beetle, among the Egyptians.