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?” (Rom. 11:33-35)
I’ve been trying off and on to memorize Rom. 11:33-35 for what seems like forever, but have just gotten verse 33. As I look at the next two verses, I’m just astounded. “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” Well, I certainly don’t know God’s mind, and there’s a good chance you don’t either. We get glimpses of His will being accomplished in our lives, but to understand God is impossible for us finite creatures. Now look at this:
16 “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. (1 Cor. 2:16)
How can we have the mind of Christ but not understand God’s mind? Jesus is God, isn’t He?
We don’t share a divine nature with the Father but we do share a human nature with the Son. Philippians 2:5 tells us to share Christ’s mind in His humility. We can’t share fully the humility of Christ. After all, He stepped down from His throne ruling over all of creation and became a man who washed the feet of other men and suffered a terrible death for us.
That’s humility above our understanding or capability. We have the mind of Christ now since we have His Holy Spirit within us to direct us and help us understand God’s will in our lives. We cannot fathom God’s mind in totality, however, no matter how close we are to God. His ways are not our ways (Isa. 55:9). God is omniscient, He infinitely knows all things past, present, and future. To understand this a little better, we need to understand God’s knowledge is such He can never learn anything. He already knows. We are incapable of mapping out God’s ways. They are so far above us.
Our communion with Christ will help us understand His will in our lives, though. That’s something!
Now on to verse 35. We as Christians want so much to repay God for all He is done for us, but what can we give Him?
My wife is used to tell me it’s hard to think of a gift for me. I have everything I need. If there is something else I need or want, I’ll go out and buy it if we can afford it. I suffer the same problem with her. Because of this, we stopped giving each other gifts several years ago.
The difficulty in finding a gift for my wife, though, gives me a slight taste of what verse 35 means.. There is nothing special enough to represent what she means to me. The universe doesn’t contain it.
What would you give God if you could give Him a gift? The universe is already His. Interestingly, Paul faces the same dilemma in verse 36:
For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.
He sees there is no thing we can give God. Paul answers the question, though, at the start of the next chapter:
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Rom. 12:1,2)
Why is this important?
Seeking to understand the omniscient mind of God leads us to frustration. We need to simply trust Him and obey. God will reveal His will through His Spirit. He is the omniscient One, not us. He’s thought it all through and knows whatever happens His plan will be accomplished. We may not be happy about how He goes about it, but after 46+ years of intimately knowing Christ and seeing all the hardships and trials we have faced together and how He has resolved them, I have only gratitude for His mind, His will being done.
The gift we can give to God is our lives, our wills, our bodies. God commands us to love Him and love our neighbors. Those are good places to start if you want to give a gift to God to show your appreciation.
Believers Armed and Dangerous 