Judge And Savior

Romans – A Treatise
Chapter Eleven
GOD OUR JUDGE – GOD OUR SAVIOR

Scripture Reading: verses 33-36 .

In Romans 11:33-36, Paul is making one grand and final master stroke in seeking to uphold the sovereignty of the court in its right to show mercy toward the criminal. Paul is so overwhelmed by the significance of all of this that he breaks forth in acclamation. He reaches the height of his eloquence as he says:

O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!

It is as though Paul had reached the end of all logical arguments, coming to the point where he can no longer describe the sovereign dignity of the God of loving-kindness. He is carried away on the wings of his eloquent defense and breaks forth in worshipful adoration of the One who has devised so vast a plan of divine goodness for the blessing of His creature. The excellence of Paul’s language is striking. He speaks of the depths of riches both of the knowledge and wisdom of God. He is overwhelmed, as it were, by the fact that the judge on the bench seems to have realized every detail confronting the court. The judge has a full knowledge of the criminal before Him; He has taken into consideration every evidence that bears on the case. His knowledge is too vast for us to understand. But not only has the court gathered together an infinite amount of information re-garding the legal status of the pardoned sinner, but, by infinite wisdom, it has found a way out of every problem. A human judge might be very well informed and have a great depth of knowledge, but still be without the wisdom to find a solution of the problems presented. In our loving God we find One who is infinite in knowledge and infinite in wisdom, hence the plan of salvation has been devised in all its perfect symmetry, and, through infinite grace, we have been brought into the scheme of divine blessing.

Paul says, “How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!” The word “judgment” here has the interpretation of “discernment,” and surely, all the way from chapter one to the present great climax in this courtroom drama, it has been demonstrated in this legal argument that God the Judge of all, has penetrated into the deepest recesses of the human heart. God has exposed the criminal to view, laying bare the noxious inner springs of his being, showing that he is corrupt, a sinner by nature and practice. But if God has infinitely accurate discernment, His ways are also past finding out. In bringing about deliverance for one who is a hell-deserving sinner, the ways of our God shall never be traced by the human mind. We are brought to the realization that God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, and as high as the heavens are above the earth, so are God’s thoughts above our thoughts.

What a reproof this should be to the pride of human intellect. We are living in an age of proud intellectual claims, when the mind of man has been practically deified, and in his own wise conceits professes to be capable of the final analysis of almost everything and everyone, including the God who made him. However, the simple Christian who has come to the discovery that he is a sinner and a recipient of the mercy of God, soon realizes the human mind has very narrow limitations, and if we are going to drink at the limitless fountain of divine truth, it must be in small measures at a time. The truth of God is learned line upon line and precept upon precept. So infinitely great and unsearchable are the ways and judgments of God that, unaided by the Spirit of God, the human mind cannot even touch them.

Paul expresses it in magnificent fashion when referring to the feebleness of human concept in the Corinthian Epistle he says,

Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit.

How great is the privilege of being a Christian. The Lord Jesus said, “I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his master doeth; but I have called you friends.” There is no greater human privilege than being allowed to walk side by side in fellowship with the One who is God manifest in flesh, and to hear Him in infinite grace call us His friends. Plus, the Holy Spirit has been sent to indwell every true believer, that He might take of the things of Christ and show them to us, thus revealing the marvelously intricate ways of divine grace, to the end that we may become worshipers at the feet of the One who is our Lord and Savior.

Then in verse 34 Paul sends out the challenge,

Who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been His counsellor? Or who hath first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed unto him?¹

It?s an unanswerable challenge. It?s encumbent on every thoughtful person to take all this into consideration. We are living in a day of tremendous mental conceit, when generally speaking people believe in things that appeal; things they can easily analyze ? only then are we ready to express an opinion about them. The true Christian stands under the shadow of the Almighty, constantly wondering at the infinitude of divine wisdom that has been so gracious as to take him into God?s eternal plans and purposes. God did not ask the advice of any person when He set forth on the scheme of divine grace. No one was His counsellor; no one asked what He was doing and no one helped Him. After all, none of us had anything to contribute to so vast a scheme of divine purpose. We become very small as we stand here in the dock of this great courtroom, sinners by nature and practice with a full pardon in our hands. We gaze at the judge upon the bench and realize He is Almighty God, the One who was and is and is to come, self-existent, self-sufficient, and infinite in greatness; yet He is our Savior. ?For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory for ever, Amen.?² God our Judge is God our Savior.

Footnotes:
¹ These words resemble those found in the Old Testament: “Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counselor, hath taught him?” (Is. 40:13) God’s ways are higher than man’s. His wisdom does not need human acceptance or approval. God’s actions derive from considerations resident in Himself and have no reference to men’s acceptance or rejection of them, and they are determined apart from and beyond any human factor whatever. In His holy revelation, God has now and again accommodated Himself to human ignorance and misunderstanding; but where such was ever done, it derived from no need on God’s part that He should do it, but was solely a manifestation of His love and grace.
² The philosopher, John Locke (Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistles of St. Paul, p. 359) noted: “This emphatic conclusion seems, in a special sense, to regard the Jews, whom the apostle would hereby teach modesty and submission to the overruling hand of an all-wise God, whom they are very unfit to call to account, for his dealing so favorably with Gentiles. His wisdom and ways are infinitely above their comprehension, and will they take upon them to advise him what to do? Or is God in their debt? Let them say for what, and he shall repay it to them. This is a very strong rebuke to the Jews, but delivered, as we see, in a way very gentle and inoffensive, a method which the apostle endeavors everywhere to observe towards his nation.” Locke’s understanding this doxology as a rebuke would seem to be justified, as the application of its sentiments is undeniable. Many others have also taken the same view of the passage; but there is a message here for all people. No one should be slow to accept this message for himself, for the thrust of these noble sentiments is timeless, belonging to all times and nations. The supreme majesty and glory of the ineffable God, Creator and upholder of all things, whose existence is from everlasting to everlasting – let people contemplate such as this, and all of their petty misgivings and doubts will disappear. It is with such a God that we have to do, and people’s attitude should be that of Job, who said, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust him.” (Job 13:15) There are some who stumble because so much of this great epistle is concerned with what was essentially a racial problem. However, Paul saw it in a larger light as having an application to the essential and inherent character of God Himself. It is in that light that his extremely full treatise on this subject is more than justified. Furthermore, it must be remembered that Paul himself had lived in constant jeopardy of his very life for holding the views proclaimed here. The brutal beatings he received, the harassment before kings and governors, the imprisonments, the brutal purpose of slaying him, the whole evil tide that surged against his noble life – all that must indeed have bruised him. But, thanks be to God, in such bruisings the full fruit of his matchless intellect in the discernment of the profoundest questions ever pondered with reference to God’s dealings with people was brought forth unto perfection and made available to the people of all ages in the epistle to the Romans. Here indeed was one in Christ.