Unlimited: God’s Unsearchable Judgments
Jun 19, 2023 744
How unsearchable his judgments (Romans 11:33b).
The phrase “his judgments” refers simply to God’s decisions. We are very good at trying to judge for ourselves. But we are miserable failures in the rightness of our judgments.
This is even true when we judge ourselves, as Jesus made clear in his parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37.) Jesus told this story to a teacher of the law who was looking to “justify himself” (v.29) as being worthy of inheriting eternal life. Another way of saying this is that he was judging himself as being right. However, through this story, Jesus showed him how far away he was from understanding what God wanted him to do.
We are miserable failures in the rightness of our judgments.
If we cannot rightly judge ourselves, then how can we judge others? Even more, how dare we think to judge God? In relation to this, Paul has earlier quoted from Isaiah 45:9:
Woe to those who quarrel with their Maker… Does the clay say to the potter, ‘What are you making?’Does your work say, ‘The potter has no hands’?
In the whole context of his epistle, Paul’s reference to God’s judgments being unsearchable relates to the Gospel. He is saying that God’s decisions to justify sinners cannot be questioned. If God says that a sinner is a saint, then that settles it, against every human opinion.
Spiritual Application
On the one hand, the Lord invites you to question him and challenge him when you face difficulties in your life, as Job did. On the other hand, we can directly defy the Lord’s will for our lives. What is the difference between these two attitudes? Where is the dividing line?
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