Based on Pastor David Jang’s sermon on Romans 1:20–22, this reflection meditates on natural revelation through the order of the created world and the testimony of the human conscience, deeply examining the essence of faith that glorifies God and lives in gratitude—and the darkness of sin that turns the heart away.
Romans 1:20–22 is not
something that can be contained in a single sentence—yet it is a declaration
whose direction is unmistakably clear. Paul’s reasoning—“For since the creation
of the world His invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine
nature, have been clearly perceived, being understood by what has been made, so
they are without excuse”—reveals that humanity’s denial of God is not merely
the result of lacking information or education. Rather, it exposes something
deeper: a willful turning away, a desire that has been inverted, and a heart
that has lost the orientation of gratitude. The reason Pastor David Jang
(founder of Olivet University) lingers over this passage in his preaching is
precisely there. He does not reduce faith to a purely emotional leap; instead,
he opens two windows at once—“me” and “the world”—and brings us to the place
where we cannot claim excuse. Whether one looks inward or gazes upon the
universe and history, the trace of God is not absence but something closer to an
overwhelming surplus. That paradox remains the tension running through the
entire text.
Paul’s argument is woven
in two layers. One is the testimony that sounds within the human being; the
other is the testimony performed by the world outside the human being. Pastor
David Jang organizes this in the language of the “subjective” and the “objective,”
emphasizing that the denial of God is not simply a conceptual problem but a
matter of one’s ontological posture—how one stands in existence itself. A
person already experiences a kind of “call” through conscience and inner
longing. At the same time, a person hears another kind of “call” through the
order of the cosmos, the precision of life, and the structure of mutual
dependence within nature. Thus Romans 1:20 is not a mere celebration of nature;
it shakes the very epistemology by which we view the world. The way the world
exists as the world is itself a message. The phrase “clearly perceived”
suggests that divine reality is not a hidden puzzle we must barely piece
together, but something more like a public signpost—something anyone can
encounter, if only the human gaze remains honest.
Pastor David Jang often
unfolds Romans 1 through the paired lens of “me and the world.” The more we
observe ourselves, the more we discover an ethical resonance that cannot be
fully explained away. In front of choices, the judgment “this is right / this is
wrong” is not merely the expression of preference. The moment we ask where the
standard that makes such judgment possible originates, we begin to sense that
we are not beings who have entirely produced ourselves. This is why Kant’s
famous line—placing side by side “the starry heavens above me” and “the moral
law within me”—is so often invoked. The vast heavens overwhelm us from outside;
the command of conscience overwhelms us from within. Their direction differs,
yet they testify to one reality: the human being cannot easily explain itself
as self-sufficient. Within me remains a summons that exceeds me, and that
summons is often uncomfortably clear.
Yet Paul does not remain
only with inner testimony. Verse 20 shifts our eyes to the immense stage called
“the world.” For Paul, the world is not a mere backdrop. The world is a vessel
of meaning, a text that reveals the grammar of existence. Here Pastor David
Jang particularly emphasizes the word “order.” The fact that the Greeks called
the universe kosmos is more than an etymological trivia; it becomes an insight
into an attitude toward seeing the world. Kosmos inherently contains the sense
of “order” and “arrangement.” Even in Paul’s time, people intuited that the
movements of the heavens were not chaotic randomness but bore a regularity, a
kind of lawfulness. In the language of modern science, nature moves according
to laws of interaction and displays astonishing coherence across both
microscopic and macroscopic scales. As Pastor David Jang notes, before such
intricate harmony, we may want to say, “It just happened that way,” and yet our
language of explanation keeps sliding toward “purpose” and “meaning.” Of
course, reducing the order of the world straightforwardly into a conclusive
proof of God’s existence can be philosophically contentious. Still, what Paul
is saying is not, “This world is a fully finished academic paper of proof,” but
rather something closer to this diagnosis: “Before this world, the posture of
pretending not to know God easily becomes a moral evasion.” Natural revelation,
then, provides a ground for responsibility.
Pastor David Jang often
makes this responsibility vivid through everyday analogies. Think of a
building’s structure, the height of a platform, the placement of windows, the
shape of a ceiling. We instinctively acknowledge the presence of design and
intent. If we rarely speak of “pure accident” regarding small human artifacts,
then the posture that confidently declares that the far more intricate and vast
universe contains no design at all feels strangely asymmetrical. When Paul
says, “so they are without excuse,” this is not a declaration rejecting
science. Rather, it is a sentence that demands the human intellect be honest
with itself. Reason is the ability to interpret the world, but it can also
become a mirror that exposes self-deception. Thus Pastor David Jang’s sermon
flows toward this conviction: “Faith is not the act of abandoning thought; it
is the act of making thought honest.” Faith does not forbid questions. Instead,
it holds us so that questions remain truly questions—questions that do not avert
their eyes from reality and testimony.
Discussion of natural
revelation can feel like a “grand discourse,” but Pastor David Jang brings it
down into the concreteness of life. Instinct and order in living creatures, the
breathing rhythm of ecosystems, the exchange of carbon and oxygen, the latent
“design-like” potential of seeds—these belong not merely to ideas but to
experience. The process by which a single seed enters the soil and grows into
an entirely different form of tree leaves behind a mystery that cannot be
erased by the single word “growth.” Why is it that the more we describe the
process, the more the “explainable realm” expands—yet at the same time a
“wonder beyond explanation” grows even larger? In Paul’s words, because God’s
invisible power and divine nature are inscribed into “what has been made.”
Pastor David Jang repeatedly presses for a recovery of basic common sense: “To
say ‘it doesn’t exist because I can’t see it’ is unscientific.” We cannot see
electromagnetic waves, yet we know they exist. We cannot grasp the wind with our
eyes, yet we experience its reality through the trembling leaves and the
sensation on our skin. The question of God is not simply “Can I see Him?” but
expands into “What will I accept as evidence, and how will I interpret it?”
At this point Pastor David
Jang naturally moves into Romans 1:21–22. Paul says, “For although they knew
God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him.” The shocking
statement here is the premise: “although they knew God.” Paul does not say humanity
fell into sin because it knew absolutely nothing. He says that in some measure
humanity knew—and yet still turned away. What are the concrete signs of that
turning? Not glorifying God, and not giving thanks. Pastor David Jang treats
these two words as the essence of sin. Sin is not merely a list of specific
acts. Sin is relational collapse and the loss of existential direction. To give
glory to the Creator is an order that makes humanity truly human, and gratitude
is the most precise expression showing that this order has taken root in the
soul. When gratitude disappears, the human being grows cold, begins to place
itself at the center of the world, and finally sits on a throne too heavy to
bear—only to collapse under its own weight.
Paul’s added phrase—“they
became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were
darkened”—contains the insight that sin does not remain a moral mistake but
extends into the distortion of the intellect itself. Here both “thinking” and
“heart” unravel together. Pastor David Jang diagnoses a defining feature of
modern people as “rationality without gratitude,” and the phrase cuts sharply.
The more information and sophisticated technology we possess, the more
impoverished we can become in the realm of meaning. Calculation grows stronger
while reverence disappears; analysis becomes skillful while praise dries up;
efficiency is maximized while the purpose of existence blurs. Paul’s
paradox—“Claiming to be wise, they became fools”—shatters the optimism that an
increase in knowledge will automatically produce wisdom. When Pastor David Jang
repeats the phrase “the heart was darkened,” it is not to mock intellectual
incapacity, but to warn that a mind that has lost its direction will eventually
operate in ways that harm even itself.
To taste this more deeply,
we might recall a single masterpiece: Michelangelo’s “The Creation of Adam” on
the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. In the tension of fingers almost touching,
the painting reveals the distance between humanity and God. It is not only a
religious symbol; it is a visual translation of Romans 1:20—of the truth that
the Invisible One makes Himself known through the visible world. Adam in the
painting has a completed body, yet bears a languor as though the spark of life
has not yet fully entered him. God, by contrast, is filled with living energy
and intent, moving toward Adam. The slight gap between the two fingertips
speaks both of humanity’s inability to reach divine fullness by its own power
and, simultaneously, of the gap as the place of longing and calling within the
human being. Pastor David Jang’s phrase, “an a priori knowledge of seeking God
within us,” resembles that sensation of the gap. Even when we insist we are
sufficient, somewhere in the heart we grope for something more. When that
groping turns into praise, gratitude, and worship, the human being finally
returns to its proper place.
Pastor David Jang also
mentions Pascal’s Wager, inviting us to see faith not as an “irresponsible
leap,” but as an “existential decision that stakes one’s whole life.” Pascal’s
logic is not merely a recommendation to treat religion as a beneficial insurance
policy. It exposes that, whether we like it or not, we already live inside a
wager. A life lived on the assumption that God exists and a life lived on the
assumption that God does not exist will generate different ethics and different
systems of meaning. From Paul’s perspective, the problem is that a life
assuming God does not exist eventually loses the foundation for gratitude,
mistakes humanity for the owner of the world, and hardens that mistake into the
darkness of the heart. Pastor David Jang boldly uses the word “barbarity” here.
The absence of gratitude is not merely bad manners; it is an ontological
violence that disregards the grace of creation and breaks relationships. When
someone receives grace and yet treats it as “obvious,” love becomes debt, and a
gift becomes a right. When gratitude disappears before God, humanity
misunderstands the received world as “mine,” and that misunderstanding produces
greed and cynicism, comparison and complaint.
The core of Romans 1:21
lies in its parallel structure: “they did not honor Him… or give thanks.” The
fundamental order of humanity shines when it gives glory to God and gives
thanks. Pastor David Jang seems to say that gratitude is not simply an ornament
of etiquette or morality; it is a thermometer of spiritual health. A person
with deep gratitude learns to read the world as a gift. The moment the world is
read as a gift, it ceases to be an arena of competition and becomes a stage of
wonder. By contrast, the person whose gratitude has dried up tries to reduce
everything to achievement. The language of achievement can be useful, but it
cannot contain the depths of life, love, and salvation. Thus Pastor David Jang
emphasizes that gratitude is needed even before being saved, and that after
being saved an even greater gratitude is fitting. If existence itself is a
gift, salvation is a gift layered upon a gift. When we awaken to that layered
gift, faith no longer crushes us under the weight of duty; it loosens us into
the direction of joy.
But Paul insists that the
absence of gratitude does not end as a mere “lack of emotion.” The phrase “they
became futile in their thinking” depicts the human mind trapped in an empty
cycle. When Pastor David Jang mentions modern philosophy’s rebellion and
mockery, it is not simply an attempt to criticize a particular academic field,
but a way of unveiling the inner motive that sometimes hides behind the
question, “Why do we need God?” That question can arise from sincere inquiry,
but it can also arise from the will that says, “I don’t want my life’s
sovereignty taken from me.” The moment we acknowledge God, we must accept that
we are not the Creator but creatures. That acceptance is not necessarily a
surrender that steals freedom; it can be a liberation that returns freedom to
its rightful place. Yet the fallen heart misreads liberation as a shackle. Thus
a person insists, “Leave me alone; I will go my own way,” to protect the
self—when in fact this is the act of turning away from the very source that
sustains one’s existence.
What is striking in Pastor
David Jang’s preaching is that he does not leave this theological diagnosis
abstract; he connects it with human experience. In moments of crisis, people
often return to the most primal language. Even those who ordinarily brandish
“reason” and mock transcendence sometimes, standing before a cliff they cannot
manage, spill out a prayer that is closer to a groan: “God, help me.” What
operates in that moment is not polished logic but something like a memory
carved into the depths of the soul. Pastor David Jang’s “a priori knowledge”
shows itself precisely here. Human beings are born with a longing that precedes
experience and education. That longing is not merely the product of fear; it
works like homesickness for one’s true homeland. Augustine’s confession—“I
sought You outside”—arose from realizing that God is not simply a distant
object, but the One who has already been calling within us. Paul’s phrase
“although they knew God” implies that humanity cannot completely erase that call.
Yet humanity tries to distort it, silence it, or replace it with something
else.
The logic of Romans 1
ultimately drives us toward worship. Worship is not the repetition of religious
habit, but the act of reading the world’s meaning rightly. Pastor David Jang’s
invocation of Psalm 19 and Psalm 8 is meant to show that natural revelation and
praise are not separated. The Psalmist’s language—“The heavens declare the
glory of God”—contains the paradox that nature speaks in a way that it cannot
speak by itself: a sermon without sound, a testimony without words, yet a
message understood everywhere in the world. It comes to us even before being
translated into human language. When we look at the night sky, listen to the
rhythm of the sea, experience the seasonality of forests, we momentarily awaken
to the truth that we are not owners but guests in this world. When that
awakening leads to humility, humility leads to gratitude, and gratitude leads
to worship that gives glory to God, we draw near to our original purpose. This
is where Paul’s worldview meets the Psalm’s summons: “Let everything that has
breath praise the LORD.” Breath is not merely a biological phenomenon; it is
the rhythm of being—and that rhythm is open toward praise.
Pastor David Jang points
to sin as “the state of having lost gratitude,” and explains why human life so
easily tilts toward emptiness. When gratitude disappears, with what do we try
to fill ourselves? With achievement, possession, recognition, pleasure, control.
Yet none of these can fully fill the bottom of the soul. Thus thinking becomes
futile and the heart becomes darkened. A darkened heart seems to need more
light, but paradoxically it refuses light—because standing in light means being
exposed. So before Paul cries, “Believe in God,” he asks, “Why are you not
thankful?” The absence of gratitude is not a technical deficiency of faith, but
the loss of the heart’s direction.
Then what do Romans
1:20–22 require of us today? If we follow Pastor David Jang’s sermon flow, it
is less “additional information” than a “change of posture.” It is the recovery
of eyes that read the world anew, an honesty that interprets the self anew, and
the restoration of gratitude born from that honesty. We often say we can
believe only if God is “proven,” but Paul instead asks about “the reason we
avert our eyes from what has already been sufficiently revealed.” The question
is uncomfortable, yet fruitful. Faith is not closing one’s eyes; it is opening
them. To recognize the gift of existence as gift is the beginning of faith.
That beginning does not require a grand emotional explosion; it grows from very
small habits of gratitude. Even in the moment we inhale and exhale, even when
we remember someone’s love, even when we realize we live within a world we did
not make—gratitude brightens the soul. And a brightened heart naturally chooses
the path of glorifying God.
The conclusion Pastor
David Jang presses through Romans 1 is a warning: the more humans claim they
are wise, the more easily they can fall into a greater foolishness. This is not
a call to deny intellect, but a request to set intellect in its proper place.
Intellect is not a king that replaces the Creator; it is a steward that
interprets the world toward the Creator. When intellect covets the throne, the
world is reduced to a tool, others become means, and finally the self becomes a
consumable. But when intellect grows humble, the world returns as a gift,
others stand in dignity, and the self is read in the language of calling.
Paul’s two phrases—“they did not honor Him as God” and “or give
thanks”—ultimately converge into the question of where we place the axis of
existence. Pastor David Jang’s sermon calls us to turn that axis back toward
God—not because it makes humanity smaller, but because it makes humanity truly
human.
Finally, Romans 1:20–22
are not merely a logical mechanism to cross the threshold of faith; they are
also a spiritual foundation that sustains faith. To behold the order of the
created world is not simply “evidence to win arguments,” but a practice that brightens
the heart in everyday life. When the way we look at nature changes, the texture
of life changes. When the language of gratitude is restored, the atmosphere of
relationships changes. A life that glorifies God begins with acknowledging
God’s existence, and deepens by remembering God’s grace. What Pastor David Jang
aims to say by holding Romans 1:20–22 is this: before we wander far away to
search for God, we should honestly look at the testimonies already given at our
side. The starry heavens, the trembling conscience, the breath given as gift,
the soul that demands meaning—all speak with one voice: “So they are without
excuse.” Before that sentence, the human being can turn not in fear but in
reverence; not under forced obligation but in voluntary gratitude; not in the
cycle of futility but toward the direction of light. And that turning is
precisely the path by which the “glory” and “gratitude” Romans 1:21 identifies
as lost are restored—the central place of faith to which Pastor David Jang’s
preaching continues to invite us.
davidjang.org
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