33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! 34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” 35 “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” 36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. (Romans 11:32-36 (ESV)
Paull signals the end with a doxology. He’s wrapping up now. Part one is over. He has laid out the gospel in its fullness. So now comes the fruit in praising God.
But the praise chafes our old Adam, our sinful nature. It is precisely that which causes so many to be bitter towards God, that causes the believer to praise him. God is unfathomable. We can’t understand him. We don’t know why he does what he does. In unbelief we are given to speculation. We try, as my mentor Rod Rosenbladt used to always say, “to catch God in the shower.” We want to see God in the nude. But he doesn’t do that for us. Best we do is catch a glimpse of his ankle showing. Our speculation becomes frustration.
But in faith we trust, and we praise God for not being like us, even when he clothes himself in our flesh and blood, he avoids the sinful jealousy. Rather he clothes himself in our flesh and blood that he might have mercy on all. He works his salvation his way, and not our way. And if we can’t understand him, then we let that remind us, that we are sinners and he is holy. We live by faith, and living by faith we live in him, and by him, with him and to him.
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