Dishonored (818) (atimazo from a = without + time = honor) means to be treated with indignity or to cause to be disgraced or degraded. To treat shamefully. To suffer shame or to dishonor (treat in a degrading manner). To insult, treat with contumely (speaks of harsh language or treatment), whether in word, in deed, or in thought. It means to cause to have a low status involving dishonor and disrespect. To deprive of honor or respect and thus to treat shamefully. Some Lexicons state that in Romans 1:24 the idea is using the body for immoral purposes and thus degrading or abusing it. To dishonor is to bring reproach or shame on; to stain the character of; to lessen the reputation. To treat with disrespect. To violate the chastity of; to debauch. Atimazo in this passage is in the present tense indicating this is the continuing state of their bodies. Here are the 7 uses of atimazo in the NT - Mark. 12:4; Lk. 20:11; Jn. 8:49; Acts 5:41; Rom. 1:24; 2:23; James. 2:6 Here are the 25 uses of atimazo in the Septuagint - Gen. 16:4, 5; Deut. 27:16; 1 Sam. 10:27; 17:42; 2 Sa 10:5; Esther 1:18; Pr 14:2, 21; 19:26; 22:10, 22; 27:22; 28:7; 30:17, 32; Is 5:15; 16:14; 23:9; 53:3; Ezek. 28:24, 26; 36:3, 5; Mic. 7:6; Among them -- This phrase may seem like an unnecessary addition but by phrasing it this way as Godet explains, Paul... wishes to describe this blight as henceforth inherent in their very personality: it is a seal of infamy which they carry for the future on their forehead. Barnes adds that among them means Among themselves; or mutually. They did it by unlawful and impure connexions with one another. Clarke adds that the idea of among them is... Of themselves, of their own free accord; none inciting, none impelling. Harry Ironside notes that... The vile immoralities depicted here are the natural result of turning from the holy One. The picture of heathenism in its unspeakable obscenities is not over-drawn, as any one acquainted with the lives of idolatrous people will testify. The awful thing is that all this vileness and filthiness is being reproduced in modern society where men and women repudiate God. If people change the truth of God into a lie and worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator, the whole order of nature is violated; for apart from the fear of God (cp Ro 3:18-note) there is no power known that will hold the evil desires of the natural heart in check. It is part of the very nature of things that flesh will be manifested in its worst aspects when God gives men up to follow the bent of their unholy lusts." (Romans 1 Commentary). As Robertson observes "Heathenism left its stamp on the bodies of men and women" whereas the salvation through the gospel brought a "...new sense of dignity for the body" Remember that Paul was writing Romans from the city of Corinth, were every sort of sexual immorality and ritualistic prostitution was practiced promiscuously. In fact things were so vile in Corinth that the expression “to live like a Corinthian” came to mean “to live a life of moral degradation”! Corinth’s idol temple had more than one thousand so called priestesses dedicated to gratification of lust. Vine describes the danger of idolatry writing that... Civilization provides no remedy for, or safeguard against, the evil. The more civilized men became, the more vicious became their idolatry. The knowledge of God is the only means of leading man to purity of heart. The sanctity of the body is implied in the teaching of this verse. Newell adds... that when man is delivered from Divine restraint, the lusts of his heart plunge him into ever deeper bodily uncleanness, and bodily vileness. History backs up this fact with terrible relentlessness. What an answer is here to all the boasting of proud men of a "principle of development" in man; to the lying claim that man is ever "making progress." The "Golden Age" of Grecian literature, and that of Roman letters, —in both of them we find remarkable minds; but their works must be expurgated for decent readers! No printer, even in this corrupt age, would dare to publish books with literal descriptions of the orgies of "classical" days." (Romans 1 Commentary) Keep in mind that it was God Who by His own will "gave them over" so this is not merely a passive sitting by but as Charles Hodge says "is at least a judicial abandonment. (cf "wrath of God is [being] revealed" in Ro 1:18) It is as a punishment for their apostasy that God gives men up to the power of sin. He withdraws the restraints of his providence and grace and gives the wicked over to the dominion of sin. God is presented in the Bible as the absolute moral and physical ruler of the world. He governs all things according to the counsel of his own will and the nature of his creatures. What happens as a consequence does not come about by chance, but is designed; and the order of events is under his control. “It is beyond question,” says Tholuck, “that, according to the teaching of the Old and New Testaments, sin is the punishment of sin.” So the rabbis teach, “The reward of a good deed is a good deed, and of an evil deed, an evil deed.” (Romans 1 Commentary ) Hendrickson writes that although one aspect of God giving men over could be to lead them to repentance (e.g., see 1Corinthians 5:5 1Timothy 1:20 and as described by Isaiah "Jehovah will strike Egypt, striking but healing; so they will return to the Lord, and He will respond to them and will heal them." Isaiah 19:22)... "Nevertheless, justice must be done also to the other side of the picture. Mercy unrequited produces wrath. Divine patience without favorable response on the part of man results in the outpouring of divine indignation. Honesty in exegesis compels one to admit that verse 24 is part of a paragraph that is introduced by a reference to “the wrath of God” (verse 18). What the present verse (24) holds before us, therefore, is the fact that at the proper time—known only to God—impenitent sinners are by that wrath allowed to be swept away by their own sins into the pit of their vile passions. By a positive action of God’s will they are finally abandoned. (Hendriksen, W., & Kistemaker, S. J. Vol. 12-13: New Testament commentary : Exposition of Paul's Epistle to the Romans. Page 75. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House ) John Piper gives 3 reasons why Paul goes into such explicit detail of the "pathology" of man's sin stating that (1) Superficial diagnoses lead to false remedies. Superficial diagnoses lead to false remedies and no cures. If you want to find true remedies for a disease, and if you want to bring a lasting cure to the people who are diseased, then you need more than a superficial grasp of the disease itself. Those who care most about a cure for AIDS or cancer, spend almost all their time studying the disease. (2) Understanding sin and wrath will make you wiser. Profound understanding of sin and wrath will make you a far wiser person about human nature - your own and others. And if you are wiser about the nature of the human soul, you will be able to fight your own sin more successfully, and you will be able to bless others more deeply with your insight and counsel. I have pled with women and men in this church in recent months that what we need to nurture and cultivate here at Bethlehem over the next decades is sages -men and women who ripen with years into deeply sagacious people: wise, discerning, penetrating, deep lovers of people and deep knowers of human nature and God's nature, who can see deeply into the tangle of sin and sacredness that perplexes the saints and threatens to undo us. If you run away from the study of sinful human nature - if you say, I don't like to think about sin - then you run away from yourself, and you run away from wisdom, and, worst of all, you run away from the deepest kinds of love. (3) Knowing the nature of sin and wrath will cause you to cherish the gospel. Probably the most important thing I would say, and the most firmly rooted in Ro 1:18, is that knowing the true condition of your heart and the nature of sin and the magnitude and justice of the wrath of God will cause you to understand the mighty gospel, and love it, and cherish it, and feast on it, and share it as never before. And this is crucial because this is the way the gospel saves believers. If you don't understand the gospel, if you don't cherish it and look to it and feed on it day after day, it won't save you (1Co 15:1, 2, 3-see notes; Col 1:23-note). Knowing sin and wrath will help you do that." (The Wrath of God Against Ungodliness and Unrighteousness) John MacArthur sums this section up by pointing out that when men seek to glorify their own ways and to satisfy their bodies through shameful indulgence in sexual and other sins, their bodies, along with their souls, are instead dishonored. When man seeks to elevate himself for his own purposes and by his own standards, he inevitably does the opposite. The way of fallen mankind is always downward, never upward. The more he exalts himself, the more he declines. The more he magnifies himself the more he diminishes. The more he honors himself, the more he becomes dishonored. (MacArthur, J: Romans 1-8. Chicago: Moody Press ) S Lewis Johnson sounds a prophetic warning for America based upon passages in Romans 1 writing that... The Pauline answer is plain, and Romans 1:24 expresses it most impressively and succinctly. When man rebelled and sinned, God "gave them up" to uncleanness in the lusts of their hearts that by their own activities their bodies might be dishonored. In other words, sexual rebellion, license, and anarchy is the retributive judgment of God. The civilization of the western world, including the particular civilization of the United States of America, is not a civilization in danger of contracting a fatal disease. That civilization has already contracted a malignant and fatal cancer through its unbelief of the message of God in Christ. It is now hurrying on with increasing speed to final climactic destruction. Civilizations do not die because of violence, crime, immorality, and anarchy. These things are evidences that death already is at work, a death brought on by disobedience to the revelation of God. It should be carefully noted that the apostle is not speaking of eternal punishment in these verses (Ro 1:24, 26, 28). He writes of a judgment that pertains to this life. On the other hand, it is also plain that Paul's words lead on to the doctrine of everlasting torment (cf. Ro 1:32). The vindicatory judgment inflicted by God is continued in the life to come in a more terrible and permanent form if the escape through the gospel of the cross is neglected. To the question sometimes posed by soft-hearted men, "Can God really give man up to judgment?," this passage provides a resounding "yes" answer. But, in fact, it is not the final and convincing answer to the question. That comes from the cross of Jesus Christ, which in the cry it elicits from our Lord, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" unmistakably affirms the fact that God can give man up to judgment. It was there that the sinless Man bore the judgment of God upon sin, and it forever proclaims the true nature of sin—it is worthy of the penalty of spiritual and physical death--and God's hatred of it with His necessary condemnation of it. Does God then care? The answer to this question also comes from the cross. It was God who gave the Son to offer the penal, propitiatory, substitutionary sacrifice, the remedy for sin and death. And, if that is not sufficient evidence of God's love and concern, reflect further upon the fact that it is also He who has revealed to men their lost condition and the significance of the atoning death, inscribed its interpretation in the written Word of God and preserved that Word for countless millions to read and ponder. Isaiah was right. Although righteous and necessary, judgment is His "strange work" and His "strange act." (Full sermon) Romans 1:25 For they exchanged (3PAAI) the truth of God for a (the) lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is (3SPAI) blessed forever. Amen (so be it). (NASB: Lockman) Greek: hoitines metellexan (3PAAI) ten aletheian tou theou en to pseudei, kai esebasthesan (3PAPI) kai elatreusan (3PAAI) te ktisei para ton ktisanta, (AAPMSA) os estin (3SPAI) eulogetos eis tous aionas; amen. Barclay: for they are men who have exchanged the truth of God for falsehood, and who worship and serve the creation more than they do the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. (Daily Study Bible) NLT: Instead of believing what they knew was the truth about God, they deliberately chose to believe lies. So they worshiped the things God made but not the Creator himself, who is to be praised forever. Amen. (NLT - Tyndale House) Phillips: These men deliberately forfeited the truth of God and accepted a lie, paying homage and giving service to the creature instead of to the Creator, who alone is worthy to be worshipped for ever and ever, amen. (Phillips: Touchstone) Wuest: who were of such a character that they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshipped and rendered religious service to the creation rather than to the Creator who is to be eulogized forever. Amen. (Eerdmans) Young's Literal: who did change the truth of God into a falsehood, and did honour and serve the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed to the ages. Amen. FOR THEY EXCHANGED THE TRUTH OF GOD FOR A LIE: hoitines metellaxan (3PAAI) ten aletheian tou theou en to pseudei: (Ro 1:18; 1Th 1:9; 1Jn 5:20 Is 44:20; Jer 2:11, 10:14,15; 13:25; 16:19; Am 2:4; Hab 2:18) Torrey's Topic Forsaking God - Idolaters guilty of 1 Samuel 8:8; 1 Kings 11:33; The wicked guilty of Deuteronomy 28:20; Backsliders guilty of Jeremiah 15:6 IS FORSAKING His house 2 Chronicles 29:6 His covenant Deuteronomy 29:25; 1 Kings 19:10; Jeremiah 22:9; Daniel 11:30 His commandments Ezra 9:10 The right way 2 Peter 2:15 Trusting in man is Jeremiah 17:5 Leads men to follow their own devices Jeremiah 2:13 Prosperity tempts to Deuteronomy 31:20; 32:15 Wickedness of Jeremiah 2:13; 5:7 Unreasonableness and ingratitude of Jeremiah 2:5,6 Brings confusion Jeremiah 17:13 Followed by remorse Ezekiel 6:9 Brings down his wrath Ezra 8:22 Provokes God to forsake men Judges 10:13; 2Chronicles 15:2; 24:20,24 Resolve against Joshua 24:16; Nehemiah 10:29-39 Curse pronounced upon Jeremiah 17:5 Sin of, to be confessed Ezra 9:10 Warnings against Joshua 24:20; 1 Chronicles 28:9 Punishment of Deuteronomy 28:20; 2 Kings 22:16,17; Isaiah 1:28; Jeremiah 1:16; 5:19 Exemplified Children of Israel 1 Samuel 12:10 Saul 1 Samuel 15:11 Ahab 1Kings 18:18 Amon 2 Kings 21:22 Kingdom of Judah 2 Chronicles 12:1,5; 21:10; Isaiah 1:4; Jeremiah 15:6 Kingdom of Israel 2 Chronicles 13:11; 2 Kings 17:7-18 Many disciples John 6:66 Phygellus, &c 2 Timothy 1:15 Balaam 2 Peter 2:15 For (1063) (gar) is a subordinating conjunction expressing cause or explanation and thus introduces an explanation. In simple terms for is a term of explanation and its occurrence should always prompt one to pause and ponder the text and context, asking what the author is explaining, how does he explain it, etc. While not every "for" in the Bible is a term of explanation, most are and since there are over 7500 uses of for (NAS), you will have ample opportunity to observe and interrogate the text. As you practice this discipline of pausing to ponder, you are establishing the context (which leads to more accurate interpretation and thus more apropos application) and you are in effect engaging in the blessed activity of Biblical Meditation (See Ps 1:2- note, Ps 1:3-note and Joshua 1:8-note for the blessed benefits of meditation). When for is used at the beginning of a passage it is usually a term of explanation.