Scripture: Romans 11:33-12:2
Date: February 13, 2011
Speaker: Sean Higgins
One of the greatest dangers for a church like ours is to enter, as Doug Wilson calls it, the FOG: the fellowship of the grievance. It is deadly for any group of people to rally around the things that they don’t like and, for Christians, few things are less appropriate than holding onto and holding up grievances. A couple unresolved complaints can cultivate conceit (and/or covetousness) and create a critical spirit that culminates in chronic hopelessness.
The way to fight conceit is not merely by saying, Stop being proud. The weapon against thinking you’re awesome and others aren’t is thankfulness. The way to fight pettiness is with worship. Those who make little things into big things are those in a distortion field; those who aren’t seeing the really big things. Trivial annoyances inevitably turn into tragic offenses apart from a transcendent context. That’s why we’ve focused on our great God and His potent gospel these beginning weeks. The way to keep ourselves (and others) from eating the bread of bitterness is to put better bread on the table.
We have great bread. Our doctrines are warm, thick, satisfying slices, “more to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.” We don’t have to eat stale or sour bread, we don’t have to eat crumbs, nor do we have to go hungry.
What do full Christians look like? Those who eat well will be singing and sacrificing, or, they will be marked by theological doxology and doxological godliness.
Doxology is praise, a formula of celebration. Understanding our great God and His great love for His Son and His great work through the church should lead to serious, joyful worship.
Anyone who’s ever stepped into the Calvinism/Arminianism crossfire knows that there may be no more doctrinally dense (or dreaded) chapters in all of God’s Word than Romans 9-11. In the flow of Paul’s letter, these three chapters have been a stumbling block to many readers. Why not skip from 8:39 to 12:1? Try it; seriously, it would work.
The fact remains, these inspired chapters vindicate the faithfulness of God to His promises. The gospel sounds fantastic, almost implausible. God credits perfect righteousness to our account by faith alone, no money down, apart from any works. God delivers us from His wrath towards corrupt, depraved, hostile men (1:18-3:20) in justification (3:21-5:21), then He begins to deliver us from our present slavery to sin in sanctification (6:1-8:17), and guarantees our participation in God’s invincible love forever (8:18-39). If God is for us, who can be against us?
But…wasn’t God for the Jews? Didn’t God make remarkable promises, forever type of covenants with Israel? If He has changed His mind about those promises, what makes us so sure He won’t change His mind about the gospel promises?
Enter Romans 9-11. The apostle upholds God’s faithfulness by explaining election and reprobation, that God chooses His people apart from what He sees in them, fashioning vessels of mercy and vessels of wrath, loving one brother and hating another. Paul shows that God’s program has always involved His choosing, exercising sovereign grace in order to demonstrate His glory in salvation and in judgment. The gospel preacher is an aroma of life to life for some, for death to death for others, that the purpose of God according to election might stand.
This answers the question about God’s faithfulness to Israel. That the majority of Jews rejected their Messiah not only wasn’t a surprise to God, it was part of His plan all along. He purposed that their rejection would lead to offering the gospel to the Gentiles (He had “other sheep” to bring in, John 10:16). But offering the gospel to the Gentiles wasn’t the end either; God planned to use Gentile belief to provoke Israel’s jealousy leading to their repentance and being grafted in again, at which time God will fulfill all his promises to them, physical and spiritual.
Whew.
Now, how should we respond to that? We could create charts to trace historical developments. We could get fired up about finding the last Gentile to be brought in. We could study about the coming kingdom and make sure our eschatological timelines are in order. Those are fine reactions, but they are not enough. In fact, if taken by themselves, we might miss the entire point.
Paul does not miss the point. As John Piper once wrote,
As I studied Romans 9 day after day, I began to see a God so majestic and so free and so absolutely sovereign that my analysis merged into worship and the Lord said, in effect, “I will not simply be analyzed, I will be adored. I will not simply be pondered, I will be proclaimed. My sovereignty is not simply to be scrutinized, it is to be heralded. It is not grist for the mill of controversy, it is gospel for sinners who know that their only hope is the sovereign triumph of God’s grace over their rebellious will.” (For the Fame of God’s Name, 33)
The point is praise. And after all the heavy theological lifting about election, Paul can’t help but burst into doxology.
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.
My outline for the passage:
But I observe three helpful things as we consider the implications.
It is concerned with God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge , His judgments and His ways . Because He is sovereign in salvation, because the faith of the elect and the rebellion of the non-elect are in His hands, He is to be praised. Election, predestination, Reformed faith, falls short unless it reverberates in God-centered praise.
Do you get any sense of pride on Paul’s part? Does anything about this sound arrogant? So why is the odor of superiority so strong when we take our bread out of the oven and offer some to others?
It’s important to note that Paul is not humble because he embraces mystery. That is a popular approach in our day, and a very loud one in some corners. But Paul isn’t celebrating doubt or secrecy or obscurity or uncertainty. Just the opposite; humility comes from full conviction.
Paul’s humility does not come from ignorance of God’s work, but that Paul wasn’t in control of God’s work. The fact that God’s judgments are unsearchable and His ways inscrutable does not mean that we can’t see them or know them. It especially doesn’t mean that God Himself doesn’t know what He’s doing. It means His ways are beyond what we would have done. We don’t need to know how God came to His decisions, and He doesn’t need our input. We are His and He is ours, but not in the same way. All things are from him and through him and to him .
We are never more ugly, never more unsavory, then when we wield God-centered doctrines to display the depth of our wisdom and knowledge of God, rather than to magnify the One who gave us a brain, and revelation, and illumination that build our understanding. The ultimate purpose for studying is not to police bad teaching—though we do that, but to be precise in our our humble praise.
The word “joy” or “rejoicing” isn’t found in any of these four verses, but the unexpectedness of the paragraph, the quick rhythm of the verses, the selected Old Testament quotations, and the punctuating Amen are goose-bump inducing literary devices.
Without the leaven of humility our bread is hard. The next worse thing is to empty a bottle of unhappy vinegar into the mix. Exalting a sovereign God doesn’t mean life isn’t hard or that we don’t suffer, it means we can SING when we are killed all the day long! Even when the melody is in a minor chord, there is still melody.
I’m convinced one of the temporal reasons people don’t want to touch our bread with a 10 foot pole is because they’re afraid they’ll end up dour, unsmiling, gloomy, and down in the mouth like us. The opposite is also true. It seems that most of the places seeing a resurgence of Reformed theology are the places where worship is most vigorous.
They’re not going to embrace your theology unless it makes their hearts sing. (John Piper, quoted in Young, Restless, Reformed by Collin Hansen, 17)
We need theological doxology, biblically/doctrinally informed worship. An understanding of the gospel (like that in Romans 1:1-11:32) should drive robust adoration. The same connection can also be seen in Ephesians 3:20-21 after three full and happy chapters celebrating God’s rich mercy and great love that made us who were dead alive together with Christ. We lovers of theology need to write more songs for the choir, not just preach to the choir. Let’s use our theological precision not merely to write polemical blogs, but also to write songs and hymns and spiritual songs.
The word “doxology” may be attached to corporate or liturgical worship formulas in some minds. But Paul isn’t providing a pattern for public worship in Romans 11:33-36, nor is that necessarily what I have in mind. A truly Reformed person shouldn’t be less than a regularly participating, praising member of a local church, but he should be more.
Because we are not our own, every day of the week and every minute of every day is not our own either. Our lives, if we genuinely get and are gotten by this great God, should be lives marked by God-honoring praise and practice, singing and sacrificing.
Immediately following the doxology, Paul moves into exhortation. Chapter 12 contains perhaps the most well-known and most un-lived appeals in Scripture.
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. 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.
The apostle urges Christians, those who are aware of the mercies of God, in particular those who appreciate those mercies to be dispensed by a sovereign, self-determining God, to give themselves to worshipful obedience.
Sovereign mercies are no discouragement to obedience; they foster it. The Father planned our obedience as sure as He planned for us to be conformed into the image of Christ. That slow but sure shaping process of sanctification begins the moment of regeneration. At that time we were united with Christ for righteousness sake and baptized with the Spirit for sake of putting to death the deeds of the body. All three Persons of the Trinity aim toward and activate the obedience of faith.
This used to be called godliness, εὐσέβεια in Greek. We, at least those in the church, used to be know for likeness to God, for devotion to Him, for obedience to Him, called godliness.
Godliness is at stake in Romans 12:1-2. We are not our own. When a sacrifice was presented, it was understood to be the possession of the one receiving it. Our bodies, that is, our very lives, our daily activities, are wholly His. They are also to be wholly holy, which is what makes them acceptable.
Getting even more specific in verse 2, this means our thinking and our behavior will stand in distinct contrast, and likely conflict, with the world. We are concerned, most of all, above all, with doing the will of the One who owns us. We are not our own.
A living sacrifice lifestyle changes our approach to relationships in and outside the church. We serve one another with our giftedness. We outdo one another in showing honor. We do not seek our own revenge. We obey authorities. We stop judging one another over insignificant issues (Romans 12:3-15:7).
Great theology enables our confident obedience, especially in situations where it seems like godliness is not likely to be an effective approach. Who but us can turn the other cheek, trusting that our great God sees and will take care of it as He deems fit, and that it’s okay whatever He does, because we are not our own?
By the way, Ephesians 3:20-21 through 4:1-3 and following also traces a direct step from doxology into godliness as well.
Theological doxology and doxological godliness are really inseparable. In a mathematical formula, doxology and doxological are the same, leaving theological and godliness. It could just as well be godology and theoliness, since theo(s) means “God.”
But do we demonstrate more “theologiness” than godliness? Those of us who claim Reformed theology, do we also model Reformed piety? Do we not see some who love studying theology more than they love being godly? Theology should produce theoliness = godliness.
It’s been said that a person won’t care what we know until they know that we care. Perhaps. But more than that, it is no wonder others don’t care what we know when we don’t obey what we know. Let’s get our arguments in line, sure. But let’s build a platform for our best arguments out of our distinct example.
I’m not interested in pushing a soft, shapeless belief. I love bread baked in a certain shaped pan, but I also love seeing it on the plate, and am frustrated by a faith without works. Moral and ethical consistency should be melted with our theological consistency, including what sorts of things we criticize.
Are we loving Ephesians 5 as much as we love Ephesians 1? Are we living Romans 12-15 as much as we’re lauding Romans 9-11? Yes, let us contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. And yes, let us adorn the doctrine of God as saints.
Charles Wesley
Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
thine eye diffused a quickening ray;
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
my chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed thee.
That’s something to talk about.
Sadly, we who ought to know better, often are not out-celebrating or out-obeying. Our singing/doxology is not superior, neither is our sacrificing/godliness, though we can still tend to act superior.
So how do we know when a Christian is eating well? When we see humble worship and happy obedience. Any adherence to doctrine that does not immediately and effectively result in higher praise and holy practice, singing and sanctification, abounding affections for and increasing likeness to Christ, is not the kind of truth I’m talking about, or that the Bible teaches.
We should be the most humble, the most happy, and the most holy of men. We are not our own. We are God’s. May our theology never fail to produce doxology that is always visible in godliness.
A hammer can break apart or build depending on how it’s used. A candle can provide fragrance to the room and it can burn someone’s fingers. Also, a hammer can’t provide light and a candle can’t pound nails.
God gives us truths to be used and provides explanation for the kind of things those truths do. The truths of His sovereignty and His glorious grace are intended to inform doxology and shape godliness, to break down our pride and build up our praise, to burn way our self-reliance and to make us servants who smell pretty to other people.
If the truths don’t result in singing and sacrificing, if they build our pride and break down others, if they burn the arguments of others and light up our own abilities, we have misunderstood the very truths we claim. Returning to the original analogy, eat and offer sweet bread to others this week.
Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith—to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ! Amen. (Romans 16:25-27, ESV)