Romans 11:33–36
“Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out!
‘For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?’
‘Or who has first given to him, and it will be repaid to him again?’
For of him, and through him, and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.”
Paul concludes Romans 9–11 with worship.
For three chapters he has addressed the problem created by Israel’s widespread unbelief. Israel possessed the covenants, the promises, the patriarchs, and the Scriptures, and from Israel came the Christ according to the flesh. Yet many Israelites had rejected their Messiah while Gentiles were receiving the salvation promised through him. Paul began by insisting that this did not mean the word of God had failed, and everything that followed demonstrated why.
Israel’s covenant privileges never guaranteed righteousness apart from faith. Many Israelites pursued righteousness as though it were by works and stumbled over Christ, while Gentiles who had not possessed Israel’s privileges received righteousness through faith. Yet Israel’s stumbling did not mean that God had rejected his people altogether. A remnant remained according to grace, and even those natural branches broken off through unbelief could be grafted into their own olive tree again if they did not continue in unbelief.
Paul’s argument has therefore removed every basis for boasting. Israel cannot boast in ancestry, because natural branches were broken off through unbelief. Gentiles cannot boast over Israel, because they are wild branches graciously grafted into a tree whose root supports them. Both have known disobedience, and both depend upon mercy.
Paul reaches the end of that argument and does not congratulate himself for having untangled a difficult theological problem. He marvels at the God whose wisdom has been displayed through it.
The Depth of the Riches
Romans 11:33
“Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out!”
Paul has spent three chapters explaining God’s dealings with Israel and the nations, so his declaration that God’s judgments are “unsearchable” cannot mean that nothing about God’s ways can be known. Paul has just reasoned carefully from Scripture, answered objections, explained Israel’s unbelief, traced the inclusion of the Gentiles, and defended the faithfulness of God. He expects his readers to understand what he has written.
The distinction is between what God has revealed and the inexhaustible wisdom of the God who revealed it. Paul has traced God’s ways because God has made them known, but understanding what God has revealed does not mean comprehending the fullness of the divine wisdom behind it.
That distinction matters in Romans 9–11 because the events Paul has described could easily be interpreted incorrectly when viewed only from the human side. Israel’s unbelief could appear to mean that God’s promises had failed. Gentile inclusion could appear to mean that God had abandoned Israel. Israel’s hardening could be mistaken for the permanent exclusion of Israelites from salvation. Gentiles could look at the broken natural branches and imagine that their own inclusion demonstrated some superiority in themselves.
Paul has rejected each conclusion because God’s work cannot be measured by such immediate appearances. Israel’s stumbling did not stop the saving purpose of God; the gospel went to the nations. Gentile salvation did not prove that Israel had become irrelevant; Paul understood the mercy shown to the Gentiles as something that could provoke Israelites toward salvation. The hardening of Israel was real, but it was partial, and broken natural branches remained capable of being grafted in again.
God’s wisdom is displayed in accomplishing his purpose through a history in which human unbelief remains genuinely unbelief and human disobedience remains genuinely disobedience. God does not need to make rebellion good in order to bring good through it. The failure of human beings does not become the failure of God.
Paul has followed that wisdom as far as revelation allows him to follow it, and what he sees produces wonder rather than mastery. The judgments of God can be known where God has revealed them without becoming exhaustively searchable by the creatures who receive that revelation.
Who Has Known the Mind of the Lord?
Romans 11:34
“For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?”
Paul draws from Isaiah 40:
Isaiah 40:13–14
“Who has directed Yahweh’s Spirit, or has taught him as his counselor? Who did he take counsel with, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding?”
Isaiah’s questions arise from the absolute difference between the Creator and those he has created. God did not acquire the wisdom by which he governs the world from someone wiser than himself. No counselor stood beside him and supplied information he lacked, corrected a defect in his understanding, or showed him a better way to accomplish his purposes.
Paul’s use of Isaiah is especially fitting after Romans 9–11 because the questions raised throughout these chapters have repeatedly concerned whether God has acted faithfully. Israel’s unbelief seemed capable of placing God’s promises in doubt, which is why Paul began by declaring that the word of God had not failed. Every subsequent argument has defended that claim.
Yet Paul has not defended God by subjecting him to some higher standard supplied by human reasoning. He has returned repeatedly to what God himself revealed in Scripture. God’s dealings with Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, Pharaoh, Elijah’s remnant, Moses, Isaiah, Hosea, and David have provided the categories through which Paul explains the present situation of Israel and the Gentiles.
Isaiah therefore establishes the proper direction of theological reasoning. God is not the student and humanity his instructor. We know God because God has made himself known, and our judgments about his faithfulness must be governed by that revelation rather than by expectations imposed upon him from outside it.
This does not make difficult questions illegitimate. Romans itself demonstrates the opposite. Paul repeatedly raises objections that naturally emerge from his argument and gives them serious answers. The difference lies between seeking to understand what God has revealed and assuming the position of God’s counselor. Scripture invites the first while Isaiah exposes the absurdity of the second.
The proper response to the limits of human understanding is therefore not the abandonment of careful thought. Paul has been thinking carefully for three chapters. It is humility about what that thought can accomplish. The creature may receive, examine, and reason from what God has revealed without ever becoming the one who teaches God wisdom.
Who Has First Given to Him?
Romans 11:35
“Or who has first given to him, and it will be repaid to him again?”
Paul’s next question comes from Job:
Job 41:11
“Who has first given to me, that I should repay him? Everything under the heavens is mine.”
The question shifts from whether anyone can supply God with wisdom to whether anyone can place God under obligation. If someone first gives something that another person owes in return, repayment becomes a matter of debt. Job denies that such a relationship can exist between the Creator and his creatures because everything already belongs to God.
That language reaches deeply into the argument of Romans. Paul used the same distinction between gift and debt when discussing Abraham:
Romans 4:4–5
“Now to him who works, the reward is not counted as grace, but as something owed. But to him who doesn’t work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness.”
If righteousness could be earned, salvation could be approached as repayment. The worker would possess something that obligated God to reward him. Paul has denied that possibility from the beginning because the righteousness of God is received through faith rather than accumulated as a debt God owes.
Romans 11 applied the same principle to the remnant of Israel. Paul described it as “a remnant according to the election of grace” and immediately insisted that if it is by grace, it cannot be by works. The believing remnant does not consist of Israelites who finally performed well enough to make God indebted to them. Their salvation remains grace.
The same is true of the Gentiles. The wild branch did not earn a place in the cultivated olive tree. Gentiles who had formerly been disobedient obtained mercy. Their inclusion therefore provides no basis for boasting over the natural branches, because the person who receives mercy cannot turn that mercy into evidence that God owed him something.
Job’s question exposes the problem beneath both Jewish and Gentile boasting. Israel cannot present ancestry, possession of the law, covenant privilege, or religious zeal as a contribution that requires God to repay it with righteousness. Gentiles cannot present their reception of the gospel as evidence that they possessed something Israel lacked and therefore deserved Israel’s place.
Neither gave to God first. The covenants came from God. The promises came from God. The Messiah came from God. The gospel came from God. The mercy by which Jew and Gentile are saved comes from God. Everything that might become an occasion for boasting turns out, upon examination, to have begun as a gift.
Of Him, Through Him, and to Him
Romans 11:36
“For of him, and through him, and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.”
Paul’s final declaration gathers the argument into three statements about God.
All things are of him. God is the source. The redemptive purpose Paul has traced did not originate in Israel, the Gentiles, Abraham, Moses, or Paul. Even the history through which salvation has come belongs first to God, because the promises, covenants, calling, and mercy that shaped that history originated with him.
All things are through him. God is not merely the originator of his purpose but the one through whom it is accomplished. Human unbelief has not forced him to abandon what he promised. Israel’s stumbling did not prevent the gospel from reaching the nations, and Gentile inclusion did not require God to become unfaithful to Israel. Human beings remain responsible for their faith and unbelief, yet their actions never make God incapable of accomplishing his purposes.
All things are to him. The purpose finally terminates in God’s glory rather than the exaltation of any human people. Israel’s place in redemptive history does not make Israel the final object of that history, and the inclusion of the Gentiles does not transfer that position to the nations. Paul has denied both groups the ability to stand at the center.
That is why Romans 9–11 can end only with glory belonging to God. The question that began these chapters was whether Israel’s unbelief meant that God’s word had failed. Paul has answered without denying Israel’s privileges, minimizing Israel’s unbelief, erasing the distinction between Israel and the Gentiles, or creating separate means of salvation for them. God remains faithful while sinners remain responsible, and the salvation of either Jew or Gentile remains an act of mercy rather than something God owes.
Paul’s three expressions also explain why the doxology is more than an emotional conclusion added after the theological argument. It is the theological argument brought to its proper end. If all things are from God, through God, and to God, then neither Israel nor the Gentiles can claim the glory produced by his saving work. The entire history Paul has described begins with God, depends upon God, and terminates in God.
“To him be the glory forever” is therefore not a departure from Paul’s reasoning.
It is its conclusion.
Oh, the Depth of the Riches
Romans 9–11 began with a question about the faithfulness of God. Israel possessed the promises, yet many Israelites remained outside Christ. Paul refused from the beginning to solve that problem either by denying the reality of Israel’s unbelief or by allowing human unbelief to become evidence that God’s word had failed.
The argument that followed removed every ground upon which either Jew or Gentile might boast before him. Israel’s covenant history was real and its privileges were extraordinary, but neither ancestry nor possession of the law could make righteousness something God owed. Gentiles received the riches of salvation, but they entered as wild branches dependent upon a root they did not create. The natural branch could not boast in being natural, and the wild branch could not boast in being grafted in.
Paul’s quotations from Isaiah and Job expose the deeper reason. No creature first supplied God with wisdom, and no creature first gave something to God that placed him in debt. God neither learns from humanity nor owes humanity salvation. What Jew and Gentile possess from him begins with his giving rather than theirs.
That makes the final sentence the proper conclusion not merely to these four verses but to the entire argument Paul has been making since Romans 9. The faithfulness of God ultimately rests upon God himself. His purposes do not depend upon the superiority of Israel or the Gentiles, and human unbelief cannot turn him into an unfaithful God.
Everything begins with him, is accomplished through him, and finally returns to his glory.
“For of him, and through him, and to him are all things.”
To him be the glory forever. Amen.