“For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.” -Romans 1:26–27
Paul continues his logical argument by explaining more clearly, giving deeper insight, into the effects of their idolatry: Their “giving up God,” and God’s resultant “giving them up.”
It’s difficult to expound more eloquently than the early church father, Chrysostom, who said of this passage,
“But when God abandons a person to his own devices, then everything is turned upside down. Thus not only was their doctrine satanic, but their life was too.… How disgraceful it is when even the women sought after these things, when they ought to have a greater sense of shame than men have.”
Pauls starts with the women, likely because female homosexuality, though present in in Greek and Roman culture, was not nearly as common as male homosexuality. Rhetorically, the unnaturalness of female perversion would be more striking to his audience and thus give clarity to his argument.
The men, likewise, says Paul, gave up (literally, abandoned) natural relations with women and were consumed with passion (literally, inflamed with an insatiable longing) for other men. Paul calls these acts they committed with one another, shameless (ἀσχημοσύνη). The Greek word means “behavior that elects disgrace, is unbecoming and abnormal.”
And what do they receive for it? An intrinsic punishment. God literally turned them over to another ruler, their passions. He allowed them to suffer under the tyranny of their sinful acts and the subsequent outworking of those acts in the menacing and malevolent effects upon all who were involved in such relationships.
As Bob Dylan would sing, “You’ve got to serve somebody.” If mankind rejects their benevolent Creator, they will be abandoned to the tyrannical despot of their fallen and perverse natures.
But let us not forget, there is even hope in Jesus Christ, even for those abandoned to unnatural desires.
“Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” -1 Corinthians 6:9–11