Romans 11.33b-Paul Praises God's Unsearchable Decrees And Incomprehensible Ways
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Wednesday September 9, 2009
Romans: Romans 11:33b-Paul Praises God’s Unsearchable Decrees And Incomprehensible Ways
Lesson # 390
Please turn in your Bibles to Romans 11:33.
Last evening we noted Romans 11:33a in which Paul praises the Father for His infinite wealth, wisdom and knowledge.
This evening we will complete the verse and note Paul praising the Father for His unsearchable decrees and incomprehensible ways.
Romans 11:33, “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!”
“How” is the relative adverb hos (w($) (hoce), which is used as an exclamation.
“Unsearchable” is the nominative neuter plural form of the adjective anexereunetos (a)necereuvnhto$) (an-ex-er-yoo-nay-tos), which is composed of the alpha prefix an, “without” and the verb exereunao, “to search out,” thus the word literally means “not searched out.”
In Romans 11:33, the adjective anexereunetos means “unsearchable” and is used as a predicate nominative meaning that it is making an assertion that God’s judgments are unsearchable.
They are unsearchable in the sense that they are impossible for both men an angels to understand on the basis of careful examination or investigation.
They are unsearchable unless God the Holy Spirit provides revelation, which He has by inspiring the Scriptures.
They are unsearchable unless the Spirit provides illumination, which He does by giving understanding to the believer when he or she studies the Scriptures.
Romans 11:33, “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!”
“His judgments” is composed of the articular nominative neuter plural form of the noun krima (krivma) (kree-mah) and the genitive third person masculine singular form of the intensive personal pronoun autos (au)tov$) (ow-tos), “His.”
In Romans 11:33, the noun krima is in the plural and means “decrees” and refers to the divine decrees, which are actually one decree but because of the limitations of our human brain we often use the plural, decrees, to express the many facets of God’s plan.
The one decree was given in eternity past before anything or anyone was created in less than a second and covering everything in all of what to us is past, present, and future history (Ps. 2:7; 148:6; Dan. 9:24).
All history was yet future at the time of the decrees.
That krima refers to the divine decree in Romans 11:33 is indicated in that Paul is praising God the Father in this verse for His rule over human history.
In particular, he is praising the Father for His righteous decisions in relation to both Jews and Gentiles, saved and unsaved.
He is praising the Father for the national election of Israel, which took place in eternity past as well as the Father’s plan of salvation, which not only includes the Jews but also Gentiles.
He is praising the Father for His grace and plan of salvation for all mankind.
He is praising the Father for His eternal plan, which is called the “divine decree” by which God has rendered certain all the events of the universe, including both angelic and human history-past, present and future.
God’s decree rendered all things as certain to occur and He decided that they would exist.
The divine decree took place in eternity past before anything was ever created and is God’s eternal and immutable will.
The “providence” of God is the divine outworking of the divine decree, the object being the final manifestation of God’s glory and expresses the fact that the world and our lives are not ruled by chance or fate but by God.
The decree of God is the chosen and adopted plan of all God’s works.
It is His eternal purpose according to the counsels of His own will, whereby for His own glory He has foreordained whatever comes to pass.
The decree of God is the sovereign choice of the divine will (His sovereignty) and mentality (His omniscience) by which all things are brought into being and controlled, made subject to His pleasure, and producing His glorification.
It is His eternal, holy, wise and sovereign purpose, comprehending at once all things that ever were or will be in their causes, courses, conditions, successions, and relations and determining their certain futurition (i.e., that they will certainly take place).
When I say “comprehending” I mean that the omniscience of God is the source of the divine decrees by “determining” I mean that the sovereignty of God chose before anything existed which things would actually become historical events.
God also comprehended at once in eternity past the course that these events would take and their conditions and relations and determined that these events would take place.
The decree of God is His eternal and immutable will regarding the future existence of events, which will happen in time and regarding the precise order and manner of their occurrence.
Furthermore, God decreed that these events would take place in time and the precise order of events leading up to these events and the manner in which these events would transpire.
In relation to the divine decree the will of God refers to the decision God made in eternity past, from His attribute of sovereignty, which established that certain things would actually come into being while other things would not.
The will of God is His sovereign choice as to what will take place in time.
God from His sovereignty decided in eternity past that each and every positive and negative decision that every person in history would make during the course of his or her lifetime and event in history would take place.
He also decided that these decision and events would take place in the exact time that they did.
Since God is omniscient He knew ahead of time the decisions that each and every positive and negative decision that every person would make during the course of his lifetime and decreed that these decisions would exist and He also decreed the exact manner in which He would handle these decisions.
The Lord knows perfectly, eternally and simultaneously all that is knowable, both the actual and the possible and thus has all knowledge of every event in human and angelic history.
Each and every positive and negative decision that a person in human history would make during the course of his lifetime was figured into the divine decree and was a part of the providence of God, which is the outworking of the divine decree, the object being the final manifestation of God’s glory.
Romans 11:33, “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!”
“Unfathomable” is the nominative neuter plural form of the adjective anexichniastos (a)necixnivasto$) (an-ex-ikh-nee-as-tos), which is used of God’s ways and means “incomprehensible.”
His ways are incomprehensible in the sense that they cannot be understood or comprehended by the human mind apart from revelation that is received from the Holy Spirit in the pages of Scripture.
“His ways” is composed of the articular nominative feminine plural form of the noun hodos (o(dov$) (ho-dos), “ways” the genitive third person masculine singular form of the intensive personal pronoun autos (au)tov$) (ow-tos), “His.”
In Romans 11:33, the noun hodos means “ways” and refers to God’s manner of accomplishing His eternal purpose.
The word refers to the policies that God establishes in eternity past and carries out in time and His decisions He made in eternity past that are manifested in time and actions that He performs that fulfill His eternal purpose.
Hodos refers to the Father’s manner of doing things through His policies, decisions and actions that bring to realization His decree or eternal purpose.
Therefore, from our study of Romans 11:33b, we see that Paul is not only praising God the Father for His infinite wealth, wisdom and knowledge but also for His unsearchable decrees and incomprehensible ways.