depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!

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September 11, 2016

This is our tenth week in Romans 11. And tonight we come to a three-verse summary of the entire chapter. These are the last verses of formal teaching in the chapter, because in the final four verses of the chapter Paul erupts into worship of our great, mysterious, sovereign, all-glorious God. I want that connection between 11:30-32 and 11:33-36 to be the first thing we notice tonight, because I want us to keep in it mind the whole time we’re in our text. “Theology” ( theos=God; logos=word, so literally “words about God”) done rightly always results in “doxology” ( doxa=glory; logos=word, so literally “words of glory”). Study of God results in worship of God. Knowing God results in praising God. God’s truth is for God’s glory. So as we study tonight, I pray that our hearts are captivated with the greatness of our God. I pray that we are blown away by a view of God’s sovereignty and mercy so massive that it defines all world history. I pray that our hearts tremble before the might and mystery of The One True God and we long to give Him the glory due His name. When we talk about viewing history through the lens of God’s purposes and God’s work, we sometimes use the term “redemptive history.” To put it simply, redemptive history is the story of how God has worked throughout history to redeem His people for Himself. We often identify four major moments in redemptive history: Creation, Fall, Redemption, Glorification. When we come to the Bible, it is very helpful to keep in mind where any part of the Bible falls within these four moments. Genesis 1-2 give us creation before the fall. Genesis 3 records the fall (when Adam and Eve disobey God and sin enters the world). Then we have a huge chunk of history between the fall and redemption. The rest of the Old Testament other than Genesis 1-3 (about 4000 years of human history) comes after the fall and before redemption is realized in history when Jesus dies on the cross. Then the rest of the New Testament, plus all of history to this very day, comes after Jesus’ redemptive work on the cross and before His final fulfillment of that work when He returns and glorifies (renews, perfects, makes immortal and imperishable) His people and His creation forever. Our text tonight gives us some important insight into redemptive history, especially into the second two periods (fall and redemption). I don’t know if this is the case for you, but sometimes I’ve had a tendency to think of redemptive history a little like this: God created a perfect world, but then the fall messed everything up, so God had to come up with a plan to fix it, so He sent Jesus, and because of Jesus’ work, one day, God will make everything perfect again. There’s a lot of truth in that. But there’s also something very, very wrong. Do you see it? I’ll type this sentence so you have time to look back up and answer before I type the answer. Okay, here it is: “So God had to come up with a plan to fix it.” Redemption is not “Plan B.” The fall didn’t catch God off guard. God didn’t think everything was going to be perfect forever, get shocked by the fall, and then have to figure out a way to fix it. God is the sovereign, all-knowing, all-powerful God who has always been and will always be accomplishing all His purposes and nothing can stop Him or thwart Him. Not even the fall—not even sin—happens outside the sovereign control of our great and glorious God. Now, please don’t hear what I’m not saying. I’m not saying sin is good, or that God “likes” sin or “approves” of sin. Sin is absolutely counter to God’s nature. There is no sin in Him. God is perfectly holy and perfectly good. And when we sin, we have truly rebelled against God and insulted God and deserve God’s wrath as our rightful punishment. Yet, somehow, while all those things are true, at the very same time, God is sovereign over our sin and using it—even planning it!—for His eternal good purposes. Is this hard to fathom? Absolutely. It’s a mystery that is probably impossible for the human mind to fully comprehend. In fact, it’s this very teaching that leads Paul to exclaim, “Oh, the

depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” (11:33)

So let’s see it in our text. In 11:30-31, Paul gives further explanation of how we should think of the periods of “fall” and “redemption” in redemptive history. We can see four stages in his teaching: 1.

The Gentiles’ disobedience—”Just as you (Gentiles) were one time disobedient to God…” (11:30)

2. The Jews’ disobedience—”...so they (Jews) too have now been disobedient…” (11:31) 3. Mercy to the Gentiles—”You (Gentiles)… have now received mercy…” (11:30) 4. Mercy to the Jews—”...in order that… they (Jews) also may now receive mercy” (11:31). And then 11:32 makes a massive and mysterious statement that is crucial if we are going to think biblically about history, “For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.” Notice that the first half of 11:32 explains 1. and 2. The explanation for the Gentiles’ disobedience and the Jews’ disobedience is “For God has consigned all to disobedience.” And the second half of 11:32 explains 3. and 4. The explanation for mercy to the Gentiles and mercy to the Jews is because it was God’s intent “that he may have mercy on all.” We’re going to walk through these four stages and wrestle with some of the difficult questions and important implications that come up, but first, make sure you see this huge truth: All of redemptive history is God’s story and is serving God’s purposes. The sin of the Gentiles and the sin of the Jews (that’s everybody!) was planned by God for His purposes. None of it caught God off guard. None of it thwarted His purposes. God has always been accomplishing all His eternal purposes in every moment in history. Even the moments of sin, which are truly counter to God’s nature and against God’s revealed will, are planned by God to serve His purposes. Second, make sure you see what’s God’s purpose for sin is: Mercy. God intends to display His mercy… to pour out His mercy. And I don’t want to oversimplify the issue… I don’t want to pretend we can peer to the bottom of the well when Paul is inspired by the Spirit to cry out “Oh, the depth!” as he stares at it… but I think we can get a glimpse of this reasoning. As far as I can tell, the type of forgiving mercy that does not count sin against us, but instead covers us in Jesus and redeems us in Him, can only be shown in response to sin. In order to show forgiving mercy, something must exist that needs to be forgiven. So God plans sin as part of His eternal purposes for this creation so that sin will serve as the canvas on which He can display His mercy. I believe this is one reason why it’s so important for us to maintain human responsibility even as we embrace divine sovereignty. Think about it: God’s purpose in planning sin is to show His mercy. But if we teach God’s sovereign planning of sin in a way that negates human responsibility, we eliminate God’s mercy. What will God show mercy toward if we aren’t responsible for anything? What will God forgive if we haven’t done anything in such a way that we are accountable and therefore need to be forgiven? Our responsibility is an important aspect of God’s merciful purposes in this creation. And also notice that when viewed in this light, our responsibility is not about us—not about our “free will” or “independence.” Our responsibility is about God! Our responsibility provides the dark setting of sin that highlights God’s mercy all the more. There’s so much more I want to say right here, but I’m trying to resist for now and wait until later. Right now, let’s walk through the four stages of history Paul outlines in out text. 1.

The Gentiles’ disobedience—Paul teaches this stage of history on his missionary journeys to the Gentiles, “In past generations (God) allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways” (Acts 14:16). There was a long period of time where God focused His work on Israel, while the nations were disobedient to Him. In fact, when God first established Israel through Abraham, God made it clear that He had an exact amount of sin and time in mind for the nations in Canaan, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years… And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” While God was growing Israel in Egypt, He allowed the sin in Canaan to reach “completion.” Their sin was part of God’s plan, so much so that God even had a quantity and a deadline in mind. In light of Romans 11:30-32, we should realize that this was not only the case with Canaan, but with every nation on earth. God is sovereign over the nations and their sin. There’s something else very important to notice about Paul’s teaching here. He is not referring to every individual Gentile on earth during that time. He is talking corporately. In other words, he’s teaching generally about the entire Gentile world, not specifically about every individual in it. The reason we know this is because the Old Testament gives us several examples of Gentiles who repent and turn to God in faith and are

saved (Job, Melchizedek, Rahab, Ruth, the entire city of Nineveh during Jonah’s preaching). So this first stage does not mean there were no Gentiles who turned to God during this time, but rather, as a whole, the Gentiles lived in unbelief and disobedience during this time. 2. The Jews’ disobedience—The Jews were repeatedly disobedient to God in the Old Testament, and this disobedience culminated when they rejected Jesus as God’s Messiah and crucified Him. Just as with the Gentiles in 1., not every individual Jew rejected God in the Old Testament or rejected Jesus as Messiah. But generally speaking, the Jews as a whole did. And generally speaking, the Jews as a whole continue to reject Jesus to this day. This ties directly in to 3. 3. Mercy to the Gentiles—In Matthew 21:33-44 Jesus tells the Parable of the Tenants and teaches that the Jews’ rejection of Him will result in mercy to the Gentiles. The owner (God) of a vineyard leases it to tenants (Israel). The tenants beat and kill his servants (prophets), so he finally sends his son. They kill the son, and the result is, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants (Gentiles) who will give him the fruits in their seasons” (Matthew 21:41). Then Jesus makes the teaching explicit, “Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits” (21:43). In other words, because of the Jews’ disobedience in rejecting the Son, the Gentiles receive mercy. Let’s emphasize two things again at this point: (1) This development is not accidental, nor is it a last-second solution God comes up with in response to sin. 11:32 tells us God “consigned all to disobedience” for this very purpose: that He may have mercy on all. The two stages of sin (Gentiles’ sin and Jews’ sin) that lead to the mercy in stage 3 are planned and purposed by God. (2) Notice again that Paul is talking generally and corporately, not specifically and individually. Even in this time of mercy to the Gentiles, there are still individual Gentiles who reject Jesus and do not receive mercy in Him. Paul encounters many of them on his missionary journeys. They riot against him in Ephesus, imprison him in Rome, and according to church history, eventually behead him. Not every individual Gentile responds to the gospel in faith, but from the time of Jesus until now there has been a massive turning of Gentiles to Jesus. Christianity started as a nearlyexclusively Jewish religion but is now the overwhelming Gentile religion in the world. Now, real quickly, let me respond to the false teaching that some people promote out of 11:32, “That (God) may have mercy on all.” They claim it teaches universalism—that ultimately God is going to save “all” people. We know that’s not true, because of everything we’ve seen in Romans. There is no salvation outside faith in Jesus. But we also know that’s not true just based on what we’ve seen in 11:30-32. In this section, Paul has been talking corporately about Jews and Gentiles as whole peoples, not individually. So contextually 11:32 is saying Jews and Gentiles alike—”all peoples”— will receive mercy, not that “all individuals” will receive mercy. So we are currently living in stages 2. and 3. The corporate unbelief of Israel continues and the corporate inclusion of the Gentiles in God’s people is taking place. This will continue “until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in” (11:25). 4. Mercy to the Jews—God is using the mercy to the Gentiles to stir the Jews to jealousy (11:11), so they will turn to Him in faith and receive mercy, as well. This will happen when “the fullness of the Gentiles has come in” and God removes the current, partial hardening from Israel (11:25). And based on what we’ve seen in Romans 11, it seems that this will be the last major event in the era of redemptive history between redemption and glorification. 11:15 and 11:26 both make me think that the mass-turning of Jews to Jesus will happen very near, or immediately before, the time when Jesus ushers in the age of glorification at His return. When we begin to see God’s work in history in this way, we see that all of history truly is planned by God for God’s purpose. Even sin—the sin of the Gentiles and the sin of the Jews—is planned by God and serves God’s purpose. And what is God’s purpose? Mercy. That He may have mercy on all (11:32). Make sure you see this! God’s sovereign purposes in history are purposes of mercy. When God employs all His wisdom to plan history, and when God unleashes all His power to bring about what He wants from history, what He wants is to show mercy. Even the purpose of sin is mercy! God is teaching us so much about His heart here! God is a God of Mercy. God had mercy in mind before the foundation of the world. It’s not going too far to say that there is a sense in which God created for the purpose of showing mercy. But let’s not stop there. Let’s press a little further into the depths of what God has revealed about His mysterious purposes.

You may remember that we saw very similar teaching when we were in Romans 5 (three years ago… so you may not remember, either!) It will really help us finish the thought tonight, so look at 5:20 with me, “Now the law came in to increase the trespass...” Why would God want sin to increase? “But where sin increased, grace abounded all the more...” God didn’t want sin to increase for the sake of sin. Of course not! God wanted sin to increase, so grace could increase “all the more.” Do you see how similar this line of thinking is to, “God has consigned all to disobedience, that He may have mercy on all” (11:32)? God doesn’t like sin; He doesn’t want sin for sin’s sake… But He does love His grace, and He wants to show off His grace. This is a deep and amazing statement about the nature of God. God is so gracious, and God so wants to display His grace, that He’s willing to cause sin to increase through His law… He’s willing for the very insult and rebellion and offense against His glory that brings about the death of His Son to increase… so that His grace can increase all the more! That’s how much God wants to show off His grace! So God causes sin to increase for the sake of grace. God gives the law to make the canvas of sin as big as possible, so that the picture of grace will also be as big as possible. As great as that truth is, the thought doesn’t end with “But where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.” The first words of 5:21 are “so that.” God has an even deeper purpose that He’s telling us about in these verses. Why did God want grace to super-increase? “So that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign…” God wants grace to reign. Where sin once reigned in death, God wants grace to conquer and reign triumphantly over sin and death. So God gives the law to cause sin to increase and to reign through death. But the whole reason sin and death are set up as rulers is so they can be conquered by grace, so that it will be shown that God’s grace is more powerful. God wants His grace to be seen and known as the triumphant, powerful ruler who reigns over sin and death. But Paul doesn’t even stop there, “...grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” When we reach the end of the thought, where does it end? With Jesus! When God gave the law and caused sin to increase, His purpose was so that His grace might reign… and that purpose is accomplished “through Jesus Christ our Lord.” All of God’s purposes are accomplished through Jesus. Jesus holds the most significant place in all of history, and Jesus deserves the highest place of honor in the universe. So… God gave the law so that sin would increase. God wanted sin to increase so that grace would super-increase. And God wanted grace to super-increase so that it would reign triumphantly over sin and death through the righteousness of Jesus. Believe it or not, we can actually go one step farther in our application of this truth. This truth isn’t limited to the period of history between the law and Jesus. I believe it’s accurate to say that this truth encompasses all of history and answers one of the biggest questions I know of. Have you ever heard or thought this, “If God knows everything, and God has always known we would sin and all of this would happen, why did God create at all? Couldn’t God have avoided all of this? Wouldn’t it have been better to avoid it all?” Do you hear 5:21 screaming the answer to those questions? “Why did God create at all?” So that grace might reign! “Couldn’t God have avoided all this?” Yes, but He didn’t want to avoid it. He wanted grace to reign! “Wouldn’t it have been better to avoid it all?” Not according to God. It’s better for grace to reign over sin than

for sin not to exist!

Do you realize how massive that last sentence is? If God always does what’s best (and He does, because He’s GOD), then it must be better for this universe to have fallen and then be redeemed than it would have been for this universe to never fall. Why? Because the fall serves the purpose of displaying God’s grace and showing that God’s grace is powerful enough to conquer sin and reign over it. Again, please don’t misunderstand: I’m not saying that sin is good, or that God likes or approves of sin. Absolutely not! Sin is absolutely counter to God’s nature— He abhors it. But what I am saying is that sin does not thwart God’s plans—He is sovereign over it. Sin serves the purpose of allowing God’s grace to reign. When God chose to create this universe, He always knew sin would exist here. That didn’t catch Him off guard. He didn’t have to come up with Plan B once sin entered the world. No, this is the plan for this world, because God intends for sin, in all of its unrighteousness and ungodliness, to serve God’s greater purpose of showing His grace to reign!

Now, it’s all well and good to say that God intended for grace to reign even before He created the world, but is that what the Bible teaches? Because 5:20-21 and 11:30-32 haven’t explicitly said that. They have only said that was God’s purpose in giving the law and God’s purpose in consigning all people to disobedience. So is there any explicit biblical teaching that God had His grace in view even before creation? Yes. Perhaps the clearest place to see it is Ephesians 1:4-6, “(God) chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace…” Before the foundation of the world, God was already making choices about His saving work in Jesus, and God’s purpose in all of that is “the praise of his glorious grace.” So yes, God intended for grace to reign even before He created the world. Now, let’s take one more step. We’ve seen that God gave the law so that sin would increase. We’ve seen that the reason God wanted sin to increase was so that grace could super-increase. And we’ve seen that the reason God wanted grace to super-increase was so that grace might reign. So, why does God want grace to reign? We actually just saw the answer in Ephesians 1:4-6, but let’s look on down to 1:11-14, “In (Christ) we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.” Why does God want to show His grace through Jesus? For the praise of His glory! God’s grace is for God’s glory. Everything that God has been working to accomplish by His grace is so that He will get the glory He deserves. So the reason God wants grace to reign is because the reigning of grace will bring Him glory. God’s glory is the most important, most valuable, most central treasure that exists. In His wisdom, God knows that to be true. In His righteousness and justice, God acts like that is true. Therefore, in everything God has ever created or done, God has always been working for His glory. “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever! Amen” (11:36). Bring all of that back to 11:30-32 tonight, and let’s piece together what we’re seeing about God’s sovereign plan and purposeful work in all of world history: God consigned the Gentiles to disobedience, and God consigned the Jews to disobedience, so that God could have mercy first on the Gentiles, and then subsequently, so that through God’s mercy to the Gentiles, the Jews would be stirred to jealousy, and God could have mercy on the Jews as well, so that all God’s people might be saved by God’s grace, so that we inherit eternal life through the righteousness of Jesus Christ, so that we praise His glorious grace forever. All of world history… all the sin and disobedience and unbelief of every human… all of God’s mercy and grace… is serving God’s ultimate purpose: His own glory. Do you see and know and believe and love that truth? Do you embrace it and cherish it and know that it is exactly right for God to make all things for His glory? Does your heart resonate with the truth that all things are for God’s glory? Does something deep within your soul shout, “Yes, this is it! This is the only way it could be! God’s glory is the one thing big enough to bring everything together… the one thing worthy of being the ultimate purpose of all things. All my life, my soul has been longing for this truth, even when I didn’t know it, because God designed my soul, just like all the rest of creation, for His glory!” Now, you may not be able to grasp how all this works. I certainly don’t. God’s sovereign planning of sin in such a way as to preserve His perfect holiness and maintain human responsibility for sin may baffle you. It does me. That’s fine. Say that this is mysterious and unsearchable and inscrutable. The Spirit of God says you are right. But also say something else: Say God is great and mighty and sovereign and wise and perfect and good and merciful and gracious! Say all things are from God and through God and to God. Say all glory to God forever!