Have you ever wondered, why does God do things the ways He does? As I’m reading through the Bible in a year, I read a lot a passages that I had to wonder, what’s the point? Why is this important to include in the Bible, and what does it have to do with me? I have to wonder about why the sacrificial system in the OT was so bloody. Could not God come up with something else? I wonder, why was Jesus born to poor parents? Why did Jesus have to die?
And I wonder that if people are inherently evil, as the scriptures says and as we discussed before, why did God make people in the first place? Or why do we have an evil heart? Couldn’t God fix that? We are not going to answer those question directly this morning, but we will consider God’s hands in all of this. We sometimes wonder about God. Yet we must remember that we must meet God on His terms and not our own. God dictates to us, not us to Him.
So often man tends to make God in our own image than realize that we are made in His image. But that image we are of God has been marred. The good news is that God has made a way for that image to be restored. And that is what we are looking at today: The miracle of God's way and methods.
The apostle Paul did not have such questions. That does not mean that he had all the answers, quite the contrary. But Paul knew God’s way in history is beyond our comprehension. So here in Romans 11:33-36, Paul lets go with a doxology, a praise to God for His wonders. Paul praises God for the miracle of His ways and methods.
Romans 11:33–36
Let me give a very brief and simplified synopsis of this Letter to the Romans. This letter is the closest thing we have to a systematic theology in the Bible. In the first part of Romans, from chapter 1 through chapter 11 Paul examines the gospel and the theology behind it. In chapters 12 through the end of the letter, Paul outlines, in light of the theology he has presented, how we should live as believers, in relationship to the world and to each other.
Quoting the John Stott, world renown theologian, who wrote many of my seminary text books, he says:
For eleven chapters Paul has been giving his comprehensive account of the gospel. Step by step he has shown how God has revealed his way of putting sinners right with Himself, how Christ died for our sins and was raised for our justification, how we are united with Christ in his death and resurrection, how the Christian life is lived not under the law but in the Spirit, and how God plans to incorporate the fulness of Israel and of the Gentiles into his new community.
Paul’s horizons are vast. He takes in time and eternity, history and eschatology, justification, sanctification and glorification. Now he stops, out of breath. Analysis and argument must give way to adoration. … Before Paul goes on to outline the practical implications of the gospel, he falls down before God and worships (33–36). [1]
Today’s reading is a doxology, or a praise directed to God. It falls at the end of Paul’s treaty on theology.
It is of great importance to note from Romans 1–11 that theology (our belief about God) and doxology (our worship of God) should never be separated. [2]
Romans 11:33a Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
This first phase in this verse could be taken one of two ways: (1) This could mean how rich is the wisdom of God and how rich is the knowledge of God. Or (2) The depth of God’s riches, the depth of God’s wisdom, and the depth of God’s knowledge. Translating directly from the Greek word for word we read: “O depth of riches and wisdom and knowledge of God." I do believe Paul is talking about the riches of God as well as His wisdom and knowledge. Especially when you compare with verses 34 and 35 where Paul covers these three things of God. riches, Wisdom, and knowledge, in reverse order.
Romans 11:34a For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD
Dealing the God’s knowledge.
Romans 11:34b OR WHO BECAME HIS COUNSELOR?
Concerning the wisdom of God.
Romans 11:35 Or WHO HAS FIRST GIVEN TO HIM THAT IT MIGHT BE PAID BACK TO HIM AGAIN?
Comparing what we have to the riches of God. These we will look at these in detail in moment, but for now, understand the relationship between these three verses. Now returning to the questions we had at the beginning of this message, what about the method God chose to save us? What about Jesus being born to poor parents, only to grow up and die a horrible death on a Roman cross? Was there another, less painful way? Hold this thought and let’s go back and examine our passage.
Romans 11:33 Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!
The riches of God! He is rich in mercy, love, grace, faithfulness, power, and goodness.
The wisdom of God! His wisdom is infinite, unsearchable, incomparable, and invincible.
The knowledge of God! “God is omniscient,” He knows all there is to know about everything, past, present and future.
His Judgments, based on His wisdom and knowledge, are unsearchable and beyond comprehension.
His ways, his courses of action, the way God moves in history are completely beyond our understanding.
The more I study the Word, the more I begin to realize how deep the Word goes. How deep God’s wisdom and knowledge, and how deep His love for me. Isaiah, in recording the word of the Lord, says:
Isaiah 55:8–9 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD. 9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts.
Paul in the first 11 chapters of Romans, attempted to grasp what God was doing. I have read these chapters many times and I still find it hard to understand. Peter says as much when He referred to the writings of Paul.
2 Peter 3:15–16 and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, 16 as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.
Here Peter equates Paul letters to all other Scripture. He also adds that many of these things are difficult to understand. Scripture demands our study and meditation so that we can begin to comprehend the deep truths revealed by them. The details of these things are hard to wrap our minds around. Would we want a God we could fully understand?
Now Paul quoting form multiple OT passages asks three rhetorical questions. Verse 34 has the first 2 rhetorical questions:
Romans 11:34 For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, OR WHO BECAME HIS COUNSELOR?
These are rhetorical because the answer is clearly “No one.” These are not new questions, Paul is quoting from Isaiah 40:13. Do we know anything that God does not already know, speaking of the extend of God’s knowledge. God knows our words before they even come out of our mouths. In Psalm 139:4 we read: Even before there is a word on my tongue, Behold, O LORD, You know it all.
And concerning God’s wisdom, He has never asked me for advice. In fact I have daily need of His counsel. But we do question God, don’t we. It is one thing to question God because you do not know or understand something. It is another thing to question God when you feel you know better than God.
Romans 9:20 On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it?
Or have we ever felt that God owes us. We need to check out attitude. Did I grace God with my appearance in church today? Or do I walk out of here feeling blessed because God graced me with His presence?
Romans 11:35 Or WHO HAS FIRST GIVEN TO HIM THAT IT MIGHT BE PAID BACK TO HIM AGAIN?
What can we give God that God, in turn, would owe us something? Is there anything we can give to God that did not originate with Him? Paul was probably thinking of what God told Job. In Job, God speaks:
Job 41:11 “Who has given to Me that I should repay him? Whatever is under the whole heaven is Mine.
The fact is; our next heartbeat is only at God’s good pleasure. The fact is God is beyond all of man’s discovery, beyond all of man’s knowledge, beyond all of man’s counseling, beyond all of man’s giving. When we consider how high and how holy God is, we need to be very careful to give God all He is due. All honor and all glory with none for ourselves.
John tells us about the worship in heaven of the 24 elders before the Throne of God we read that they say:
Revelation 4:11 “Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created.”
When we consider God, that He is high and holy, He know me better than I know myself, That He holds everything in His hand and none of creation would exist except for His will, And He owes none of us anything, when I consider that my next heartbeat is only by His grace, I find it amazing that God provides any salvation to me at all.
My sin separated me from God. I deserve the wrath of God for my sins. Because of my sin I deserved death, eternal separation from God. But God made a way. God sent Jesus, born to poor parents, grew to die a gruesome death on a Roman cross. Jesus took my sin upon Himself and the wrath of God poured out on Him instead of me. No, I do not understand the whys. Nor do I understand the depth of that love God has for me. The miracle of God’s method to bring salvation is beyond me. That is why in heaven is full of praises to God.
Revelation 5:12–13 saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.” 13 And every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all things in them, I heard saying, “To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever.”
When we look at the depth of love and pattern put into place before the creation of the world I marvel at it all and I will have to join in Paul in praise and say:
Romans 11:36 For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.
When God’s methods are begun to be understood, our reaction should be the same as those in heaven, one of praise and worship and thanksgiving. Don’t you think God knows what He is doing? Shouldn’t we be following him? Shouldn’t be trusting Jesus with our all in all?
[1] John R. W. Stott, The Message of Romans: God’s Good News for the World, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001), 309.
[2] Ibid., 311.
