Romans 11:33-36

Doxology
33 Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and [i] knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments,
and his paths beyond tracing out!
34 "Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?" [j]

35 "Who has ever given to God,
that God should repay them?" [k]

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


Dig Deeper
My wife and I were recently returned to South Africa for a trip that involved a lot of teaching but was just as much about renewing some great friendships that we have there. Near the end of our three weeks there, some very good friends of ours took us on a special trip to a place called Tsitsikamma. It was one of the most most beautiful places that I have ever been to in my entire life. Spending two days there was truly an incredible experience that we will never forget and was full of unforgettable memories. On the way back from the area, we stopped at a large gas station and restaurant complex along the road. As we got out, our friends insisted that we walk down this highway with them that headed away from the complex. They said they wanted to show us a bridge. My first thoughts were that this was a little strange. I had seen plenty of bridges and I wasn’t particularly fond of walking along the side of a highway. We went perhaps a hundred yards and then came to a narrow walkway that was part of the bridge but still on the side of the highway.

As we walked further out over the chasm that the bridge spanned, I realized that it was fairly windy and the way seemed rather precarious. To my right was speeding cars whizzing past, but on my left was a precipitous drop off. I still didn’t see much of the point of all of this until suddenly we stopped in the middle of the bridge and our friends told us to look down. I carefully braced myself against the short fence and peered over the side. Suddenly I was exhilarated. I was standing over the largest drop and the biggest bridge I had ever been on in my life. I had never seen anything like that and it was hard to comprehend. Looking down into was frightening and enthralling all at the same time. It was so majestic and yet there still felt like an element of danger to looking over the side. After standing and looking over for quite some time, I did what any normal person would do (at least humor me that this is what normal people would do). First I spit over the side but the bridge was so high that I lost site of the spit long before it got anywhere near the bottom. Not to be deterred, I threw a coin over and timed it to see how long it would take to hit the bottom. I don’t remember the exact time it took, but it seemed like it took forever.

Paul uses a series of quotations and allusions in this doxology that come from Isaiah, Job, and the Psalms, but overall, it has a Psalm-like feel to it. And that is perfectly appropriate. Paul has taken us through a pattern that is typical for the Psalms. He has brought up a problem and wrestled through it, asking the question of how God is going to work and still be faithful to his word in all of this. Finally, he works out the problem and sees things more clearly, if not perfectly, and breaks out into unadulterated praise of God. He has made his way through a confusing and rather thorny issue, trying to work out God’s covenant purposes and demonstrating that through the Messiah he has shown himself to be righteous and faithful to his promises. The walk was difficult but now we have arrived at the end and as we look back at everything that Paul has discovered about God’s plans and his mercy shown in the Messiah, we realize just how far we have come and how exhilarating it is. Sure, there are areas where we can go too far in one direction or the other and come up with some strange ways to take what Paul has tried to say, but as we stand braced at the top of the summit, we can see the breathtaking reality that Paul has uncovered. All of God’s promises are truly “yes” in the Messiah. He has done exactly what he said he would do even though it was in a far more subtle, crazy, complex, baffling, and beautiful way.

Before we look at Paul’s exuberant praise of God, however, we would do well to consider one more aspect of what Paul has said up to this point. Paul has laid out the truth that God had chosen ethnic Israel as his people but that they rebelled against their purposes because they were susceptible to the same problem of sin that the pagan world, born in Adam, was prey to. Israel was hardened, meaning that they had rebelled against God’s will and God delayed judgment, giving them time to repent. They did not use that time to repent, however, and continued in their unbelief, yet God used that very rejection of the Messiah to open the door to bring mercy to the remnant of ethnic Israel and to the Gentiles. Paul’s hope was that the coming in of the Gentiles would spur the rebellious Jews that were still part of hardened Israel into the kingdom. Paul believed that hardening was the process where judgment was delayed so that first, the hardened would have the opportunity to repent; second, God would use the intervening time to further his own purposes; and third, when God did enact judgment, it would be clear that he had acted justly. This all raises the question, though. Was there a specific time when the hardening of the nation of Israel would come to an end and the judgment of God would no longer be delayed? The short answer would seem to be yes, and that that judgment happened in 70 AD when the Temple was destroyed and Jerusalem was largely destroyed. This event clearly declared that God had come in judgment and vindicated Jesus as the Messiah that he said he was all along. This is what Jesus referred to in Matthew 16:28 when he promised that some people that were listening to him that day would still be alive when (using apocalyptic language from Daniel 7) he would be vindicated by God and come into his kingdom, which was language that signaled that he would “come” or “enact judgment” in his kingdom. This coming, we need to note, should not be confused with the “second coming” at the time of the resurrection.

But in Paul’s mind, he has climbed the mountain and shown how incredible God’s plan is and the only reasonable response for Paul is pure praise. “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom,” says Paul. God’s wisdom is unspeakably greater than anyone could have imagined. Rather than questioning God’s faithfulness, the proper response is to marvel at his wisdom. His judgments, rather than being unjust, are unsearchably faithful. Even when one doesn’t understand God’s ways, faith in his righteousness should be our instinct. His paths are straight but so incredible that no one could have guessed that this is how God has worked. The knowledge of God, meaning his knowledge of us and his ways, is truly wonderful beyond our ability to every fully comprehend. We can apprehend the greatness of God’s ways but never fully comprehend them.

In Isaiah 40 and Job 41, we have two of the most exuberant and strongly worded statements concerning the incredible and unquestionable sovereignty of God in the entire Bible. It is from Isaiah 40:13 that Paul draws his first two questions in verse 34, while his third question comes from a loose quotation of Job 41:13. His point of the three questions is that God’s ways and purposes are so incredible and so complex, yet so simple that no human being could match this kind of thinking or make it up. No human could come up with this. No one could put this sort of plan into effect through their own power and put God in their debt to forgive them. This could only come about through the power and mercy of God.

Paul has seemingly laid out each of his rhetorical questions to match up with his three statements from verse 33 in a chiastic (ABCCBA) pattern. Thus: The depth of his riches relate to “Who has ever given to God that God should repay them?”; his unserachable judgments relate to “who has been his counselor?”; and his paths beyond tracing out relates to “who has known the mind of the Lord?” The implied answer to each of the rhetorical questions is presumably “no,” but perhaps Paul wants us to see something deeper than that. Can any human know all of this? The answer is that no human can understand what God is doing but Jesus Christ is the embodiment of wisdom. He alone can grasp God’s plan, fulfill it and act on it. This would mean that Paul wants his readers to see that the answer to “who can know all of this,” is “no one, except Jesus Christ, who has revealed in his own life the very plan of God for reconciling his covenant family to himself.”

Paul ends this brief hymn of praise by pointing out that God is the source, the sustainer, and the goal of all things. He is truly the one worthy of glory forever. Humans have failed to give God proper glory (Rom. 1:21) and have subsequently fallen short of that glory (Rom. 3:23). Abraham was called into the family of God and gave God glory (Rom. 4:20) because he knew that God would keep his promises. Now, for those in Christ, the glory is restored (Rom. 5:2; 8:30), but ultimately, the glory rightly belongs to God. He is truly worthy of glory and praise.

In the opening story I mentioned that once I realized how incredible, breathtaking, and majestic was the view at which I could look down upon from the bridge, my immediate response was to spit and then to throw a coin from the bridge. Why would I feel the need to do that? Because once I grasped the sheer majesty and height of where I was, I wanted to see how that worked out practically. What did it mean? How high was I really? In a sense, this is what Paul is about to do for the next four chapters of this letter. He has addressed the question of God’s covenant faithfulness and has shown just how incredible and deep the answer is. Now as he stands looking down on the majesty of God’s wisdom, Paul wants to show exactly how this all works out practically; What this all means on a day-to-day basis for God’s people. As he works it out in the real world, we will realize that it is no less breath-taking than unsearchable truths he has laid out so far.


Devotional Thought
How often do you take the time to take a step back like Paul does here and just consider how incredible God and his paths really are? Take an extra ten or fifteen minutes, at least, in your prayer time today to do this and to give God the praise he deserves.