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THE UNSEARCHABLENESS OF GOD’S WAYS
ON whatever side we look, we are surrounded with mysteries; yea, we are a mystery to ourselves. The works of creation, and providence, and redemption, are all mysterious; and the more we know of them, the more we shall be disposed to exclaim, “O the depths!” Perhaps no one of the children of men ever had so deep an insight into the great mysteries of the Gospel as the Apostle Paul: yet, when he had unravelled them in a way that no other man ever did, he was constrained to acknowledge, that there were in the Gospel, treasures unexplored, and mines unsearchable, and riches of wisdom that far surpassed the conceptions of any finite intelligence. This is a truth which we ought to be well acquainted with: for, till we are made sensible of it, we shall never regard the Gospel with that reverence and admiration which ought ever to exist in our minds towards it. Let us then contemplate the unsearchableness of God’s “judgments,” that is, of the means he has appointed for our salvation, and the incomprehensibility of his “ways,” by which he dispenses that salvation to fallen man.
He is altogether incomprehensible,
I. In the way he has provided for the salvation of men—
Consider,
1. His sending his only dear Son to he the surety and substitute of fallen man—
[From having been early instructed in that great mystery, the incarnation of the Son of God, we hear of it without emotion: but when we contemplate, that the Creator of heaven and earth became a creature, in the likeness of sinful flesh; that in order to his being formed immaculate, he was born of a pure Virgin through the operation of the Holy Ghost; and that, being so born, he did actually become a curse for us, and “bear our iniquities in his own body on the tree;” we are lost in wonder. We are not only at a loss to comprehend it, but seem as if we could not believe it; so strange, so almost impossible, does it appear: and if it were not confirmed in such a way that it is impossible to withhold our belief, we should be ready to account it blasphemy to assert such a fact, and madness to believe it. But the fact is so: and as, at the first revelation of it, it filled all heaven with wonder, so will it do to all eternity: “the height and depth and length and breadth of the love” displayed in it, will never be explored.]
2. His saving men by a righteousness not their own—
[This seems no less unsearchable than the former. Supposing that God had sent his Son to expiate our guilt, we should at least expect that he would require man to work out a righteousness for himself, and to obtain salvation by his obedience to the law. But, blessed be his name! he has not required any such thing. He requires men indeed to be righteous, and to obey his law: nor will he save any man who does not in these respects endeavour to fulful his will. But he does not require man to fulfil his law, in order to work out a righteousness whereby he may be justified: on the contrary, he requires men to renounce all dependence on their own righteousness, and to seek for acceptance solely through the righteousness of Christ. A perfect righteousness of our own we could not have: and therefore God sent his own Son to obey the precepts of the law, as well as to suffer its penalties, and by his own obedience unto death, to “bring in an everlasting righteousness,” “which should be unto all, and upon all, them that believe.” Thus the vilest sinner in the universe, the very instant he truly believes in Christ, becomes possessed of a righteousness commensurate with the utmost demands of God’s perfect law, a righteousness in which he stands before God without spot or blemish. How wonderful is this! how inconceivable to any finite capacity, that God should, I had almost said that God could, appoint such a way for the restoration and salvation of fallen man!]
3. His bringing out of man’s fall more glory to himself, and more good to man, than if man had never fallen—
[The dishonour done to God by the fall of man was beyond all conception great: yet is the honour done to him by man’s recovery infinitely greater. True it is, God would have been equally glorious in himself, if man had never been restored: but his perfections would never have been so displayed in the sight of his creatures. It would never have been known that mercy constituted any part of his character; whilst it is, in reality, that perfection in which he most delights. Nor would his justice have appeared so awful in the destruction of the whole human race, as it appears in inflicting death upon his only dear Son, when standing in the place of sinners. But suppose that mercy might have been exercised towards sinners in some other way; how could justice have borne any part in their salvation? But now justice is as much engaged on the side of a believing penitent as mercy itself; and the penitent, whilst he entreats God to be merciful to himself, may entreat him also to be just to his Beloved Son, who paid the full price for his redemption: yes, he may hope in the very justice of God, who is “a just God and a Saviour,” and can be “just, and yet the justifier of all them that believe.” What an inscrutable mystery is here!
But we must notice also the good that accrues to man. Suppose man had never fallen, he would have had but a creature’s righteousness, and consequently a reward only proportioned to it: but now the believer has the righteousness of the Creator himself, even the Lord Jesus Christ, who is “made righteousness unto us,” and is therefore “called, The Lord our Righteousness.” I may add too, that the believer is actually more safe than Adam was in Paradise. Adam had his own safety, and that of all his posterity, committed into his hands: and what the event was, we know by bitter experience. But God has now committed his chosen people to the hands of his own Son, that he may redeem them by his blood, sanctify them by his Spirit, and “preserve them blameless unto his heavenly kingdom.” Now Jesus himself tells us, that “of those who were given him, he lost none,” nor ever would lose one; for that “none ever could, or ever should, pluck them out of his hands.” The Father has no longer trusted us, so to speak, with our own destinies: he has treasured up our life and strength in Christ Jesus: “our life is hid with Christ in God:” and because Christ himself is our life, we, at his appearing, shall appear with him in glory.”
Say, now, brethren, whether “these judgments be not indeed unsearchable, and these ways past finding out?” — — —]
Glorious as that part of our subject is, we leave it, in order to mark the mysteriousness of God’s dealings with men,
II. In the way in which he imparts that salvation to them—
And here we would notice his conduct,
1. Towards the world at large—
[This is the point to which St. Paul in our text more especially refers: he has throughout the whole chapter expatiated upon the rejection of the Jews, the calling of the Gentiles, and the final restoration of the Jews themselves: and from the view of those mysterious dispensations he is led to make the exclamation before us. Consider then these points. Consider his first separating to himself a people in the person of Abraham, who was an idolater, like all the rest of the world. Yet he took not all of his seed; but only the seed of Isaac, excluding Ishmael from all participation of the promised blessings. Yet neither did he take all of Isaac’s seed; but rejected Esau, the elder, and took Jacob, the younger; and that too by a special order, “whilst they were yet in their mother’s womb, and consequently could have done neither good nor evil.” Is there nothing wonderful in this? Who could have conceived that God should vouchsafe such mercy to any; or that, vouchsafing it, he should dispense it in so sovereign a way? Yet so he did; and the fact is undeniable. In due time he multiplied the posterity of Jacob, and brought them out of Egypt, and led them through the wilderness, and put them into possession of the promised land, and communicated to that family exclusively the means of salvation for the space of two thousand years. Here we might ask, If God was not merciful, why did he choose any? and if he was merciful, why for so long a period did he exclude any? But “God’s ways are in the great deep.” “He giveth not account to us of any of his matters.”
At last, for their iniquities he cast off his chosen people; and made the rejection of them the occasion and the means of calling in the Gentiles. Who shall explain this mystery? Who shall tell us the reasons why God acted thus? Who shall tell us why the Gentiles were not called before; or why they were called then; and especially why God made the fall of the Jews to be the riches of the Gentiles, and the salvation of the world? Will any one undertake to account for these things?
But the deepest part of this mystery yet remains to be noticed. God has still purposes of love towards his rejected people, though he has cast them off almost eighteen hundred years; and intends to make the more general awakening of the Gentiles the means of bringing back again to him the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and of engrafting them again upon their own stock, from which they have been so long broken off, and on which the Gentiles have been so long graffed in their stead: and then he will make that very restoration of the Jews the means of converting the whole world; so that it shall be as if there were a general resurrection of all the saints to live again upon the earth, all mankind being united under one head, the Lord Jesus Christ, and all constituting one fold under one Shepherd. What shall we say to these things? Was there not reason for Paul, in the prospect of them, to exclaim, “O the depths!” Truly “God’s judgments are a great deep [Note: Psa_36:6.]:” “He doeth great things and unsearchable, and marvellous things without number [Note: Job_5:9.].”]
2. Towards individual believers—
[In reference to these also we must say, that “God’s ways are not as our ways, nor his thoughts as our thoughts; but as high as the heavens are above the earth, so are his ways high above our ways and his thoughts above our thoughts.” Observe the objects of his choice: Who arc they? Are they such as human reason would select? He takes a Manasseh, who had filled Jerusalem with the blood of innocents; a Mary Magdalen, who had been possessed by seven devils; a Saul, that was a proud, blaspheming, cruel, blood-thirsty persecutor; and he leaves the young man, who, in his own opinion at least, had kept all God’s commandments from his youth up: yes, publicans and harlots were admitted into his kingdom freely and in vast multitudes, whilst the Scribes and Pharisees were given over to final obduracy. What shall we say to this? The fact is unquestionable; and we can only say, as our Lord did in the contemplation of this great mystery, “Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight.”
Mark farther the manner in which he calls them to himself. Some he calls with terror, as the jailor; and others with the gentle drawings of his love, as Nathanael: some by the instrumentality of his ministers; and others by the secret operations of his Spirit, without the intervention of any outward means: some suddenly, as Matthew; others gradually, as Apollos: some in early life, at the third or fourth hour; and others on a dying bed, at the eleventh hour.
His mode of completing in them the good work must also be noticed. Some he leads through deep waters, as David; whilst others have comparatively a smooth and easy passage: some, like Peter, are suffered to fall into grievous sins; whilst others, like Paul, persevere in an unblemished course even to the end.
In all these things the sovereignty of God is most conspicuously displayed: and St. Paul has a peculiar reference to that in the exclamation before us. He asks, “Who hath first given to the Lord?” Who has laid him under any obligation to confer his blessings upon him? If any such person can be found, let him come and prefer his claim; and I pledge myself, says he, that “it shall be recompensed unto him again.” And then he goes on to declare, that God, as a mighty Sovereign, does every thing purely of his own will, and for his own glory: for that “of him, (as the Author,) and through him, (as the Disposer,) and to him, (as the End,) are all things: and that to him must all the glory be given for ever and ever [Note: ver. 35, 36.].”
Such are God’s judgments, and such his ways: but “how little a portion of him is known [Note: Job_26:14.]!” This however we must say, that though “clouds and darkness are round about him, righteousness and judgment are the basis of his throne.”]
See then from hence,
1. What is the proper posture of a sinner’s mind—
[We should not presume to sit in judgment upon God, arraigning either the declarations of his word, or the dispensations of his providence. What know we either of the one or of the other? “We were but of yesterday and know nothing:” and “if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know [Note: 1Co_8:2.].” We are not to imagine, that, because there are many things in God’s word above our ability to comprehend, they are therefore not true; or that, because in his providence there are many things which we cannot account for, they are therefore not good. We should remember, that the wisdom of man is foolishness with God: and that “though vain man would be wise, he is born like a wild ass’s colt [Note: Job_11:14.].” Let a sense of our extreme ignorance then lead us to a meek submission to our God; and let us, whenever difficulties occur, satisfy ourselves with this reflection, that, “what we know not now, we shall know hereafter.”]
2. What is the truest felicity, both of saints and angels—
[To search into the great mystery of godliness is right, provided we do it with humility and godly fear. And, if we look to God to teach us, “he will by his Spirit shew us, what no unassisted eye ever saw, or ear heard, or heart conceived.” Yes, He will teach us “the deep things of God:” he will exhibit to our view “the unsearchable riches of Christ,” and give us an insight into that mystery of a crucified Saviour, “in which are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” What do we suppose were the feelings of the Apostle, when, from a view of the unsearchableness of God’s judgments, he cried out “O the depths!” Can we conceive a sublimer joy than he at that time experienced? The angels are constantly employed just as he was at that time. We are expressly told, that they are “always desiring to look into” the great mysteries of redemption; and, no doubt, from every discovery they make, their joy is exceedingly enhanced. We cannot doubt but that the felicity of the saints in glory will very principally consist in this, in admiring and adoring those dispensations of grace and mercy, which here they so superficially beheld, but which then will he more fully unfolded to their view. Let this then, brethren, be your employment now: it will be a heaven upon earth: and the more enlarged are your discoveries of your Redeemer’s glory here, the more will you be prepared and fitted for the enjoyment of it in a better world.]