Because people did not honor God, he gave them up to dishonor. In today’s passage, the Apostle Paul is going to give details on what he gave them up to and provide a warning for those who choose the path of dishonor over honor.

Refusal to honor God results in the dishonor of the body, namely through unnatural sexual passions. In Genesis, God’s icons are ordered as male and female and paired as male and female. When God’s image is denied–they refuse to honor God–the image of God in humankind is marred–so humans have no image to pattern themselves after and we’re given up to perversity.

Romans 1:28-31

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

For the Apostle Paul the end of those things doesn’t lead anywhere good. When we talk about God’s punishment of the ungodly or God’s wrath, we need to remember that God is not enacting special punishment most of the time. Rather, people who practice these things experience the natural consequences. When God forbids sinful behavior, it’s for our good, it’s to preserve life. And when God calls us to repent and come back to him, that’s a grace to restore us to the life he designed for us.

God doesn’t give up on us, there’s always grace. God will give us up to our passions if that brings us back to him. He will give us up, but he never gives up on us.