“Oh, how great are God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his ways! For who can know the Lord’s thoughts?  Who knows enough to give him advice?  And who has given him so much  that he needs to pay it back?” Rom. 11:33-35, NLT. 

Footsteps #372. Paul here quotes Isa and Job. For 11 chapters Paul has been providing his readers with a comprehensive account of the human situation and God’s solution to that problem – “the gospel”, which “is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Rom. 1:16,). 

Step by step he has guided his readers through the universality of sin, God’s solution in justification by faith, the way in which Christians should live their lives, and how both Jews and Gentiles are on equal ground when it comes to God’s mercy. Paul has covered a great deal of territory. Now he has reached the mountaintop. Like a traveler who has reached the summit of an Alpine ascent, the apostle turns and contemplates. Mountains are at his feet, but brilliant light illuminates them, and all around is an immense horizon that his eyes command. 

As Paul views the plan of salvation, he sets forth a mighty doxology in Romans 11:33-36. All he can do is praise God for all that He has done. Ordinary speech won’t do. The majesty of what God has done leaves the apostle awestruck.  

“Riches” is an important word to Paul. (See Rom.2:4, 9:23, 10:12, Eph.3:8 etc.) The dominant thought in Paul’s theology is that God, who has riches undreamed of, has chosen to pour out His treasures on human beings who have not the slightest legal claim to them. The wonder of God’s generosity never ceases to amaze the apostle. How God could take a miserable persecutor of the church such as himself and shower him with blessings, including the blessing of salvation, left him with nothing but praise and wonderment. He didn’t understand why God would do such a thing, but he was willing enough to accept it and appreciate it.  

What is a person but an almost invisible speck on an almost invisible speck of a planet in an almost invisible speck in galactic terms (the Milky Way Galaxy)? And yet God poured out the riches of heaven for each of us. He sent His only begotten Son to rescue this planet in rebellion. Why? Because of His love! But who can understand such love? “No one,” is Paul’s answer. We can glimpse its depths and its majesty, but we have no way to fully comprehend it. 

That conclusion places each person in a rather humble position. Most of us from time to time would like to tell God how to run things on earth and just how to carry out the plan of salvation and the final judgment. But in the final analysis, we have to back off and let God be God. 

As much as we would like to we can’t contribute to His riches, no matter how hard we work at it. As Paul has recently noted, nothing we can do will buy our salvation or even add to its value. All we can do is humbly accept God’s riches and pray daily that we might learn to walk with Him more perfectly as we seek to let Him change us in such a way that we will become progressively more like Him. The wonder of wonders is that even though God is beyond us, He has agreed to live out His life within us.