Roman's 11:33-36

ROMANS 11:33-36

33 Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! 34 For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, OR WHO BECAME HIS COUNSELOR? 35 Or WHO HAS FIRST GIVEN TO HIM THAT IT MIGHT BE PAID BACK TO HIM AGAIN? 36 For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.

33 Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!

This section is pure praise and is no argument at all, yet it is the greatest argument of all. If we do not understand the why of God’s dealings with Israel, with the Gentiles, and with ourselves, it is not because there is not a good and sufficient reason. The difficulty is with our inability to comprehend the wisdom and ways of God. The Lord has made certain that any person who genuinely seeks Him can know enough of His truth to be saved. “But the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness to him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2: 14). God nevertheless gives the gracious assurance that “You will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29: 13). All is locked in the depth of the riches of the wisdom of God.

O the depth ... - This passage could be translated "O the depth of the riches, and of the wisdom, and of the knowledge of God." The apostle has three subjects of admiration. Our translation, by the word "both" introduced here, followed the Latin Vulgate, and confines it to two. The apostle may wish to express his admiration of the riches, and the wisdom, and the knowledge of God. The word "depth" is applied in the Scriptures to anything vast and incomprehensible. As the abyss or the ocean is unfathomable, so the word comes to denote what words cannot express, or what we cannot comprehend. “Riches” means “inexhaustible resources,” implying either that the wisdom and knowledge of God are inexhaustible, or that the materials at His command are inexhaustible. Wisdom directs all things to the best end; knowledge sees that end, and the way that leads to it. His divine wisdom was exercised in contriving and ordering these dispensations, and knowledge in foreseeing the effects which they would produce. By means of these infinite resources God is able to bring good even out of evil. We can rest on the fact that what God is doing is wise, it is right, and it is the best that can be done: He is God!

Paul bursts out with a marvelous doxology, in which he rejoices that God’s temporarily setting Israel aside glorifies His incomprehensibility. The wonder of God’s gracious omnipotence is wholly beyond human understanding. It staggers even the most mature Christian mind, including the mind of the apostle himself. All comprehending knowledge, which surveyed all the subjects of this work, all the necessities and circumstances of their being, all the means requisite for the accomplishment of the divine purpose, and all the results of those means from the beginning to the end. Infinite wisdom, in selecting and adapting the means to the object in view, in the ordering of the whole scheme of creation, Providence, and redemption, so that the glory of God, and the happiness of His creatures are, and are to be, wonderfully promoted. His judgments are unsearchable. Unable to further explain an infinite and Holy God to finite and sinful men, Paul can only acknowledge that God’s judgments are unsearchable and His ways are unfathomable! God’s dealings are beyond the comprehension of mortals.

You and I have an old nature that questions God when He makes a decision. While we may not understand the things that happen to us, we must believe that it is for our good that God allows them. Our circumstances may not always seem to be good, but they come from the “depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God.” God says to us, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55: 8-9). God gives us more than all the truth we need to know Him, trust Him, and serve Him. But no matter how diligently we may have studied His word, we must confess with David that “such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is too high, I cannot attain to it” (Psalms 139: 6 ). He says of God’s judgments, that they are unsearchable; therefore not to be complained of, censured, or to be narrowly pried into; and of His ways, that they are past finding out – unfathomable – the same in sense with unsearchable.

Here for Paul the seeking of the mind turns to the adoration of the heart. If a man can say that all things come from God, that all things have their being through Him, and that all things end in Him, what more is left to say? God gave man a mind, and it is man’s duty to use that mind to think to the very limit of human thought. But it is also true that there are times when that limit is reached and all that is left is to accept and to adore. Paul, having done his best, is content to leave it to the holy and perfect love and omnipotent power of God. It is as if he says, “I cannot grasp Thy mind, but with my whole heart I trust Thy love. Thy will be done!”

34 For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, OR WHO BECAME HIS COUNSELOR?

An echo of Isaiah 40:13; also Jeremiah 23:18; [and Wisdom 9:13]. No one knows the mind of the Lord. Men can ponder His revealed Word, but the mind of the Lord – only the Lord Himself can know it. God’s only counselor is Himself. It was Paul’s ambition to know Him. He says, “That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death” (Philippians 3:10). Yet even these partially knowable truths conceal elements that are far beyond our comprehension (CF. Deuteronomy 29:29 ). He derives knowledge from none of His creatures, but is in this, as in all things else, independent of them all. No one can advise God. Although I’ve seen those that felt they were really giving God good advice – He doesn’t need it.

35 Or WHO HAS FIRST GIVEN TO HIM THAT IT MIGHT BE PAID BACK TO HIM AGAIN?

Echo of the question in Job 41:11. Have you ever really given anything to God which put Him in the awkward position of owing you something? What do you have that He hasn’t already given you? He won’t be in debt to anybody. When anyone gives Him something, He turns around and gives Him more. God is sovereign, self- sufficient, and free from any obligation except those He places on Himself. He owes the Jew nothing and the Gentile nothing.

Men are justified, not on the ground of their own merit, but of the merit of Christ; they are sanctified, not by the power of their own good purposes, and the strength of their own will, but by the Spirit of God; they are chosen and called to eternal life, not on the ground of anything in them, but according to the purpose of Him who works all things after the counsel of His own will. The creature has neither merit nor power; his hopes must rest on Sovereign mercy alone.

36 For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.

[The formal resemblance to Marcus Aurelius (Meditations 4:23) is often pointed out. Marcus Aurelius was the Roman emperor from 161—180 AD; A stoic philosopher.]

“For from Him” – God is the all-sufficient cause and source of everything. “Through Him” – God is the mighty sustainer and worker. “Unto Him” – God will call every creature to account for their purposed efforts toward Him, as all things flow toward God. “To Him be the glory”—the glory belongs to Him in all the ages. Are we robbing God of His glory by taking credit for things we have no business to claim? God is Himself All in all. IT is ALL about GOD!

“WORTHY ART THOU, OUR LORD AND OUR GOD, TO RECEIVE THE GLORY AND THE HONOR AND THE POWER: FOR THOU DIDST CREATE ALL THINGS, AND BECAUSE OF THY WILL THEY EXISTED, AND WERE CREATED.” (Rev. 4:11)

The glory belongs to God forever! This expression denotes the final cause, the reason or end for which all things were formed; that He might act as God, and have the honor and praise that is due to God. As this was the design and purpose of all things. Whatever begins, let God's glory be the end. The basis of ‘believing faith’ therefore, is best in accordance with the character of God, the nature of man, and the end of the universe, in which all things are of, through, and to God; and which most effectively lead men to say,

“NOT TO US, O LORD, NOT TO US, BUT UNTO YOUR NAME BE ALL THE GLORY” (Psa. 115:1).

Contributing Commentators: W. Barclay; A. Barnes; J. Benson; F.F. Bruce; C.J. Ellicott; M. Henry; C. Hodge; J. MacArthur; J.V. McGee; M. Poole; Strong’s Concordance;