TEXT [Commentary]

  H.   The Mysterious Ways of God (11:33-36)

33 Oh, how great are God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his ways!

34 For who can know the LORD’s thoughts?

Who knows enough to give him advice?[*]

35 And who has given him so much

that he needs to pay it back?[*]

36 For everything comes from him and exists by his power and is intended for his glory. All glory to him forever! Amen.

NOTES

11:33 Oh, how great are God’s riches. This is a reference to the abundance of his grace, not to wealth per se.

and wisdom and knowledge! This speaks of God’s transcendent “wisdom” (sophia [TG4678, ZG5053]) and “knowledge” (gnōsis [TG1108, ZG1194]) expressed in his work of saving people. Some scholars would link the three terms in this verse differently as “the riches of his wisdom and knowledge” (cf. NIV).

his decisions. Lit., “his judgments” (krimata [TG2917, ZG3210]).

11:34 For who can know the LORD’s thoughts? Who knows enough to give him advice? This is an allusion to Isa 40:13, LXX: “Who is able to advise the Spirit of the LORD? Who knows enough to give him advice or teach him?” Cf. also Isa 45:15; 55:8-9; Jer 23:18; Wis 9:13. God’s ways transcend all human understanding.

11:35 And who has given him so much that he needs to pay it back? A close equivalent of the Heb. version of Job 41:11, which differs considerably from the Gr. version. God owes no one anything.

11:36 For everything comes from him and exists by his power and is intended for his glory. Lit., “Because from him and through him and for him [are] all things.” Cf. Col 1:16, where the same is said of Christ. There is a close parallel in a statement of Marcus Aurelius (Meditations 4.23): “From thee are all things; in thee are all things; to thee are all things.” All that happens has its origin in God and serves his purposes.

All glory to him forever! Amen. No matter what the perplexities of life (in this case, the difficulties of understanding the Jews’ relation to God), God is to be praised in it all.

COMMENTARY [Text]

Paul concludes this parenthetical section (chs 9–11) with words of praise to God, whose mysterious ways are beyond the grasp of the human intellect, and upon whose mercy everything finally depends. “How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his ways! For who can know the LORD’s thoughts?” (11:33-34). As humans, we are unable fully to comprehend either the mind of God or theenigmas of life—in this case, the failure of the Jews to receive Christ’s salvation. In the end, all we can do is bow in submission to him as Lord and give him our praise. “For everything comes from him and exists by his power and is intended for his glory. All glory to him forever! Amen” (11:36).

After concluding that God’s desire is to have mercy on all people, Paul expresses his utter amazement at the sheer grace and greatness of God: “Oh, how great are God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge!” (11:33). At the same time, he confesses his total confusion in trying to understand God’s inscrutable ways: “How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his ways!” (11:33). He is at a loss to know how to put together the various factors to be considered in attempting to understand why Jews have turned their backs on Christ. Face to face with the paradox of God’s sovereignty and human responsibility, Paul freely confesses the limitations of human understanding (11:34). But for Paul, this enigma is no occasion for frustration and skepticism; rather, it is cause for praise, for it reflects the profound and unfathomable nature of God himself in all his glory—the God whose ways and thoughts are as far beyond ours “as the heavens are higher than the earth” (Isa 55:8-9). The enigmas of life are rooted in the mysteries of God, which lie beyond human understanding. He is God and we are not—and because of that we bow before him in worship.

Appropriately, Paul concludes this section by reminding us of the incomprehensible greatness of God (11:36). Things are as they are because God has made them so for his own inscrutable purposes. He does not answer to us—we answer to him; God owes no one anything (11:35). In the end, everything is for him, not for us (cf. Isa 43:7, 21: “I have made them for my glory. . . . I have made Israel for myself”). And as people created and saved by God—and chosen for his purposes—we are infinitely indebted to him. Everything we have is a gift of God, and our life (physical and spiritual) is sustained only by his grace. So the real question for us is not how to understand the enigmas of life but how to respond to them. As people who owe him everything, we cannot challenge God and demand answers. On the contrary, with all of our unanswered questions, we can only bow in submission before him and give him our praise—for he alone is the Lord, the Sovereign One, and he has ultimate authority over all things. “All glory to him forever! Amen” (11:36).

The ending of this section is strangely reminiscent of the ending of the book of Job. To the perplexing question of why he has suffered so much, Job never receives an answer. But catching a vision of God in all his greatness, Job is humbled and silenced and bows his knee in submission to the sovereign will of God—and God blesses him for it. The unanswered questions no longer seem so important when one catches a glimpse of God in all his greatness.

In these three chapters, then, we see Paul wrestling with the agonizing question of how to understand the situation of the many Jews who are not saved. He gives us no simple answer but instead encourages us to look at the problem from multiple perspectives. We have to remember the following:

God has the right to choose whomever he wishes (9:15).

People have the freedom to accept or reject him (10:3, 12-13, 16).

It is only by God’s grace that anyone is saved—thank God for the chosen few (11:5).

The Jews’ non-response has resulted in salvation for the Gentiles (11:11-15).

One day, all Israel will be saved, for God will be faithful to his promises (11:26-27).

The most intriguing thing about Paul’s discussion of this difficult issue is his conviction that one must take account of both God’s sovereignty and human responsibility and his seeming acceptance of the unresolved tension between the two. Part of being human, Paul implies, is learning to live with paradox. We must acknowledge the limitations of human understanding and accept that we will never have all the answers—we must learn to live with the mysteries of God. In the end, “We live by believing and not by seeing” (2 Cor 5:7).