They Knew — and Did Not Give Thanks

The fall, as Paul writes it, does not begin in ignorance. It begins in a knowing that refused its proper acts. What may be known of God was plain to them. God made it plain. The things made render His eternal power and divine nature clearly perceptible, so that men stand without excuse (Rom 1:19-20). The evidence was not missing. What was missing stands named in one sentence, and the sentence deserves to be read slowly:

"Because, knowing God, they didn't glorify him as God, neither gave thanks, but became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless heart was darkened." (Rom 1:21)

Mark the order, for the order is the doctrine. Knowing stands first. Then two refusals, both in the active voice: they did not glorify Him as God; they did not give thanks. Then two passives follow: they became vain in their reasoning; their senseless heart was darkened. Men refuse. God answers. The answer is the refrain of the passage — God gave them up (Rom 1:24, 26, 28). And between refusal and darkening, Paul names the exchange: they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped the creature rather than the Creator (Rom 1:25). The heart that will not glorify God as God does not stay neutral. It trades. Suppression of the truth is where the passage opens (Rom 1:18), and suppression is an act, not a gap in information.

Hear this, then, with precision: a man can hold true statements about God and stand inside this verse. Acknowledgment is not yet faith. Nebuchadnezzar confessed to Daniel that Daniel's God is God of gods and Lord of kings, a revealer of mysteries (Dan 2:47). The confession was accurate. Every word of it was true. The same king then raised a golden image and commanded the nations to fall down and worship what he had made (Dan 3:1-6). Truth on the lips had not become trust in the heart. The demons keep the same orthodoxy at a higher pitch: they believe that God is one — and shudder (Jas 2:19). And the Lord Himself warns of men who will address Him with the doubled confession, "Lord, Lord," and rehearse their works, and hear in answer, "I never knew you" (Matt 7:21-23). Knowing about God, even saying true things about God with feeling, is not the same act as believing in Him. Romans 1:21 stands over all of it: they knew — and the knowing perished, because it never became glory given, and it never became thanks.

Now set the lepers beside them, for Luke has drawn the same anatomy in a single road scene. Ten men, lepers, stand at a distance and cry with one voice for mercy (Luke 17:11-13). Jesus sends them to the priests, and as they go, they are cleansed (Luke 17:14). The gift is given on the road, to all ten, through the word spoken. Then the road divides. One of them, seeing that he was healed, turned back, glorifying God with a loud voice, and fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving Him thanks — and he was a Samaritan (Luke 17:15-16). The nine kept walking. They had received the same cleansing. They made no return.

Jesus asks the question the whole passage exists to ask:

"Weren't the ten cleansed? But where are the nine? Were there none found who returned to give glory to God, except this stranger?" (Luke 17:17-18)

And to the one at His feet, Jesus speaks a second word that He speaks to no other of the ten:

"Get up, and go your way. Your faith has healed you." (Luke 17:19)

The word rendered "healed" is sōzō — saved. Ten were cleansed. One heard "saved." Hold the distinction without blurring it in either direction. The return did not buy the cleansing. The cleansing came first, freely, on the road, before any man turned. It is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who has mercy (Rom 9:16), and no man comes unless the Father draws him (John 6:44). Thanksgiving does not create the gift. Thanksgiving exposes it. The return is what faith looks like when it has received: it goes back to the Giver, glorifying God with a loud voice, and it falls at the right feet. Paul uses the same grammar of the heart elsewhere — thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin obeyed from the heart the pattern of teaching delivered to you (Rom 6:17). Thanks and obedience-from-the-heart stand together. And the Thessalonians' conversion is described as a turning: you turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true God (1 Thess 1:9). Turning, thanking, obeying from the heart — this is the shape of believing, set over against a knowing that confessed and walked on.

So the two knowings must not be confused. There is a knowing that perishes (Rom 1:21). And there is a knowing that is eternal life itself: that they know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent (John 17:3). Paul cuts the line at its root: knowledge puffs up, but love builds up; the man who imagines he knows something does not yet know as he ought — but if anyone loves God, this one is known by Him (1 Cor 8:1-3). The final word in Jesus' warning is not that the "Lord, Lord" men failed to know enough about Him. It is "I never knew you" (Matt 7:23). And Paul rejoices over the Galatians not first that they knew God, but rather that they were known by God (Gal 4:9). The direction of the knowing is the difference. A knowing that proceeds from being known glorifies and gives thanks. A knowing that stands alone suppresses, exchanges, and darkens.

The herald therefore puts the question where the texts put it. Not: do you acknowledge what is true of God? The demons clear that bar, and Nebuchadnezzar cleared it before he built his image. The question is the one Jesus asked over an empty road: where are the nine? You have received. Will the receiving become return — glory given to God, thanks at the feet of Jesus, obedience from the heart? The one who returned heard the word the nine never heard. Your faith has saved you. He who believes has eternal life (John 6:47) — present possession, spoken in the present tense. Let the peace of Christ rule, and be thankful (Col 3:15). Do not be numbered with those who knew, and did not give thanks.