From the MLJ Archive

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: Most of you will remember that we are considering these great words which are to be found at the end of the eleventh chapter of Paul's epistle to the Romans, verses 33 to 36. "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or who hath been his counselor? Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory forever. Amen."

Now, I remember saying when we began to consider this great doxology that there are some people who, in our opinion quite wrongly, feel that it's almost sacrilege to attempt to analyze such a great statement. I suggested that that is quite wrong, that that is to treat it merely as literature. A constant danger when we are handling the Holy Scriptures is to deal with them and treat them as if they were but literature and to enjoy the sound of these magnificent terms that the apostle uses and piles up one on another.

I suggested that if we really were to enter into the spirit of the doxology, we must analyze it and consider the various terms that the apostle gives us because he takes the trouble to tell us exactly how he felt, and that is what we've been trying to do. We come back, therefore, for this third and last consideration of this tremendous statement.

The apostle here, let me remind you, is standing back as it were and looking first of all at what he's just been saying about this astonishing and apparently incredible thing that is going to happen to the Jews as a nation. How all Israel in that sense is going to believe the gospel and is going to become a part of the Christian church with the Gentiles. That's the first thing that makes him burst out like this.

But we do agree with all who say that, in addition to that, he undoubtedly here is standing back and looking at all the great exposition which he has put before these Roman Christians from the sixteenth verse in the first chapter. As he looks at it all, this tremendous plan and purpose of God in redemption in Christ Jesus, he feels that this is the only thing that he can say. He's amazed, he's astonished. He can but exclaim with a sense of utter amazement.

We've seen that what first of all makes him do this is his realization of the depth of all this. "O the depth," he says. These deep things of God which he's been handling. Then he has divided that up, as we've seen, into the riches, God's grace, the wisdom, and the knowledge, and we've considered what he means by that. Then last Friday night, we went on to the second division, which is this. Not only the depth of all this, but the apostle says because it is so deep and profound, it is something which is entirely incomprehensible to man.

"How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!" We looked at God's judgments and we saw that they were so wonderful, so profound, that man can't follow them. Then his actions, carrying out these judgments of his, his ways, they can't be tracked out. They can't be traced out. They're past finding out.

Now, that's the point at which we've arrived, but you see the apostle has still not finished. He's impressed by the depth. He's impressed by the incomprehensibility of it all. Now he goes on to tell us something more. All this, he says, is not only incomprehensible to man; it is completely independent of man in all ways and in every conceivable respect. Independent of man. Now, of course, this is not surprising to us. This follows again with a kind of logical inevitability from what he's already been saying. Because of this depth and profundity, because of the utter incomprehensibility, it is clearly something that is entirely independent of man.

But as we know, man is very slow to see that. Man is still slower to admit that. So the apostle is anxious that this should be brought home to these people and to all Christian people in all ages and generations. He's particularly concerned to stress this. This, I believe we can say quite rightly, has been one of the leading themes of the whole of the epistle: that salvation is totally independent of man and is altogether and entirely of God.

The way the apostle introduces that to us is put here in verses 34 and 35. "Who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or who hath been his counselor? Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again?" Now, those, you see, are quotations. The first comes, of course, from the prophecy of Isaiah, chapter 40 and verse 13. You remember how the apostle quotes a part of that in 1 Corinthians 2:16. He obviously was fond of this because it does express in that astounding manner that you get there in Isaiah 40 this great truth: "Who hath known the mind of the Lord? Who hath been his counselor?"

Then the quotation in verse 35 comes from the Book of Job, chapter 41 and verse 11. Now, there's an interesting point about this. Let me just deal with this mechanical point before we go on to look at the great doctrine itself. But there is an extremely interesting mechanical point here. We've noted this kind of point as we've been going along, and it's right that we should do so here again. The authorities point out quite rightly that the apostle here in quoting from Job 41:11 did not quote from the Septuagint translation. He generally does that in his quotations. Here he hasn't done so.

Why not? Well, there is no doubt that he knew that it wasn't a good translation. The Septuagint translation of Job 41:11 is not a good and an accurate translation. The apostle, knowing that, took the Hebrew and translated it himself. The translation that we have here in our English version of what the apostle wrote is an accurate translation of the original Hebrew.

I'm not going to stay with that tonight because we've got these other matters, but we have frequently noted this point. Let me just remind you of what seems to me to be the essential doctrine at that point, which is this: that the great apostle was himself as inspired as those who wrote the Old Testament scripture. That is why we get these occasional variations in a quotation from the Old Testament as used by the apostle. It doesn't mean that he's playing fast and loose with the scripture. What it means is that the same Spirit who gave the scripture originally gives it now to the apostle in this other form. It's an interesting and a fascinating point. I've often emphasized it as being one of the great proofs of the inspiration of the whole of the scripture. Peter doesn't lightly say that what Paul writes is scripture in the sense that the Old Testament is scripture. Very well, just take that in passing.

Now, these two quotations which the apostle picks out here and uses are, of course, very germane to the point which he's making. He's already put it before us. The depth. The incomprehensibility. Then he wants to press this right home and to show that it's altogether apart from man, and he picks out these two quotations. Now, there is no doubt whatsoever but that in these two quotations, there is not merely a statement of fact, but there is an element of irony, divine irony, divine ridicule. It's important that we should bear that in mind. Man's arrogance needs to be humbled, and here the scripture does that.

"Who hath known the mind of the Lord?" Who dares make such a suggestion? "Who hath been his counselor?" "Who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again?" I believe that that is how we should read this. You see, you get exactly the same thing in the first chapter of Paul's epistle to the Corinthians. Listen to this. "Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?"

Now, there's great irony here. God is ridiculing the pride and the arrogance of man. That, I think, is an element in these two quotations that we're looking at together here now. You get the same thing in many other places in the scripture. Take, for instance, the end of 1 Corinthians 15. "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" This whole element comes in, displaying the glory of God.

Very well, this then, I say, is the great fundamental proposition which the apostle lays down here as he's been doing it right through the mighty unfolding of this glorious doctrine: that salvation is of God and all of God in every way. Man makes no contribution to it whatsoever.

Now, let's again remind ourselves of why it is the apostle says this at this point. It follows on, you see, immediately on verse 32. "For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all." The "all", you remember, we interpreted as meaning Jews and Gentiles. He's been talking about them in the two previous verses, 30 and 31. That's been the theme of the whole chapter. What he sums up in verse 32 by saying is the fact is, he says, that Jews and Gentiles have both alike been held down in unbelief by God, that he might have mercy upon both groups.

It is his mercy that saves Jew and Gentile alike. So, you see, having worked it up to that point in the argument that we've been going through, he now bursts out here and puts it like this: that it is totally and entirely and completely independent of man.

Now, it's very interesting to notice the way in which these two quotations selected by the great apostle under this divine leading and inspiration deal in a very wonderful way with the three points that he's put before us in verse 33. He deals with them in the reverse order. Now, what's the order in verse 33? Well, here it is. "O the depth." The depth of what? Well, we saw the depth of the riches, the depth of the wisdom, and the depth of the knowledge.

But in the quotations, they come the other way around. "Who hath known the mind of the Lord?" That corresponds, you see, to the knowledge in verse 33. He starts with that and works backwards. This is a most important point. This is what I say he's driving home with this quotation. He says, he's put it positively in verse 33, that our salvation is the result of this great knowledge of God who knows everything and therefore has catered for every possibility and every eventuality, and that is the thing that renders our ultimate salvation and glorification certain, this knowledge of God.

He says, isn't it obvious that this puts man right out altogether? What knowledge does man possess that he can give to God? What addition can man make to God in this matter of knowledge? You see, he's ridiculing the thing. The implied answer is, the question implies the answer, that man not only has no knowledge that he can give to God, but that man's essential trouble is due to his ignorance.

The apostle has been working this out for us in great detail. Man's troubles eventually all come out of his ignorance. Then modern man, twentieth-century man, man in 1965 with all his learning and his advance, man come of age and all the rest of it. The real trouble with him is his ignorance. His ignorance of God. His ignorance of the being of God. He wouldn't speak about him as he does were he not so utterly ignorant of him. He wouldn't express his confident, pompous, blasphemous opinions if he knew anything. The more man says about God, the more he displays his utter ignorance.

If he knew more about God like Job of old, he'd put his hand on his mouth. He'd become silent before God. But it's his ignorance that makes him speak, and the more he speaks, the more he betrays the ignorance. Not only is he ignorant of the being of God, this God of whom we've just been singing, "Immortal, invisible, God only wise, in light inaccessible, hid from our eyes." Man adding to the knowledge of such a being? The thing is monstrous. It's ridiculous.

He knows nothing about God's purposes. He knows nothing about God's ways. Little man is busy in trying to put his universe in order, and he can't do it. He's showing that he can't do it. The tragedy is that he doesn't know that God has a great plan and purpose which is in execution and which is going to be finally completed. Man's ignorant of all that. He's ignorant of himself in the same way. He's ignorant of his true nature. He even glories in the fact, which he regards as a fact, which isn't a fact, but he glories in the teaching of evolution which tells him that he's just something that's evolved out of an animal and doesn't know that he's been created in the image and likeness of God.

He's ignorant even of that. He's ignorant of his condition. He's ignorant of his need. Never has he been more ignorant of that than today. He thinks he needs knowledge and education. That isn't his real need. But he's ignorant of all this. Still more vital in a sense, he's ignorant of the devil. He's ignorant of the forces of evil and of hell and their malign influence in this world, the things that the apostle speaks of in chapter 6 of Ephesians: that we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against these principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world. Modern man knows nothing about them. Hence, the condition of his world.

He's ignorant of the judgment that awaits him. He's ignorant of the eternity of punishment that awaits all who die in this darkness and ignorance of sin. He's ignorant of all that and ignorant of what God has planned and purposed with respect to it all. So, you see, the apostle ridicules this. "Who hath known the mind of the Lord?" Where's the man who feels he can stand up as an equal and says, "I know as God knows"? He doesn't.

The only way man can ever have this knowledge is that it is given to him. The apostle works that out as you know in 1 Corinthians 2 and ends with the statement, "We," Christians, "the ones who've received the Spirit, we have the mind of Christ." But if a man hasn't got the mind of Christ, he knows nothing. "He that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he might instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ." Very well, he deals then with the knowledge.

Then you see he comes to deal with the wisdom, and he does that in this question: "Who hath been his counselor?" A counselor is a man from whom you expect wisdom. A counselor is a man who's of value to you when you're confronted by a difficult situation and you don't quite know what to do and you need advice, you need help, you need suggestions, you need counsel. So the apostle puts his great ironical question: who claims that he can give any counsel or help or advice to God?

The answer is again implied in the very question. It is, of course, that man has got none to give. Because of his ignorance, he cannot possibly have any advice to give that is of any value at all. Indeed, man unconsciously betrays this very thing. Man thinks he knows. Man is always ready to give his advice. Modern man in his inflated arrogance is always giving advice even to God as to what he should do. They don't hesitate to do that. They criticize God. They say, "Why does God allow this?" These blasphemous questions. It's all based, as I say, upon ignorance, and they are ready to give advice and to make their suggestions.

But notice how man betrays his folly in all his attempts to give advice or counsel to God. Listen to the modern man in his cleverness giving advice to God as to how a man can be saved. How does a man become a Christian? Well, the modern man thinks he knows, and alas, there are many such in the Christian church. How does a man become a Christian? The answer is by living a good life, by obeying a moral code, by obeying some kind of law. Isn't that the way? Isn't that what man thinks? Isn't that his instinctive idea as to how a man becomes a Christian? You make yourself a Christian. Perhaps you're made a Christian by being born in a certain country. To some, it's pure nationality as it was with the Jews of old. So it is to many today. Christian countries, non-Christian countries. Then, but especially this, our good works.

So they talk about their rights and their demands, and they believe they can present the account to God. "This is the life I've lived," like the Pharisee of old. "I fast twice in the week. I give a tenth of my goods to the poor." What a good man I am! I'm philanthropic. I'm always out to help people. They think that in that way they save themselves and they make themselves Christians and assure themselves of a hope of heaven. To which the simple answer is this: that if God were prepared to accept that suggestion that man makes, there wouldn't be a single Christian. There would be nobody saved. We would all go to hell. If God adopted our suggestion as to the way of salvation, well then, as the apostle has put it already for us in chapter 3, "There is none righteous, no, not one. By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin."

If God adopted man's advice and suggestion and counsel, the whole of mankind would be irretrievably doomed and damned. That's a measure of the folly of man, you see, in putting forward his suggestions. But he shows this folly equally in this way: that when you do present him with God's way, he regards it as unutterable foolishness. "We preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness." And they're still saying the same thing. This idea that God has sent his Son into the world, the incarnation, the two natures in one person, God and man, the sinless life, the substitutionary atoning death, the resurrection, ascension, Holy Spirit, new life, being born again, the world ridicules it.

Thus it shows, you see, the truth of what the apostle quotes here: "Who hath been his counselor?" Every suggestion man makes would but lead to his damnation. When he's confronted by God's way, he dismisses it as folly, and still he claims that he's able to tell God what he ought to do. There's only one thing to say with a man like this, to a man like this: "Who hath known the mind of the Lord? Who hath been his counselor?"

So he deals with the second matter, and that brings us, of course, to the one that is first in verse 33 but which is taken here last. "Who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again?" Here, you see, this attitude of modern man to this matter of riches is dealt with and finally ridiculed out of court entirely. Man, in other words, has nothing to give God at all. Not only has he no knowledge, not only has he no wisdom to give, he has nothing to give at all in any way. He has no righteousness to give, he's nothing.

Now, the apostle has been emphasizing that this is as true of the Jew as it is of the Gentile. "We have before proved," he says, "that both Jew and Gentile are in exactly the same case." You remember he repeats and repeats this. Here I see it before me in chapter 10 in verse 12. "For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him." The apostle has proved in the first three chapters that the Jew is as damned and as hopeless as the Gentile. No difference. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. He hath concluded them all together under sin.

But here, you see, this thing has to be impressed upon the mind of man because of his foolish pride and arrogance and his misplaced confidence in himself. What has man to give to God? That's what he's really asking. Who has given first to God, and God, as it were, just rewards him because of what he's given? Who has any claim to make upon God? What is man? What kind of claim can he make upon God?

The great answer that runs through the whole Bible is this: that man not only has nothing at all to give, but he is a hopeless debtor. He's in a most terrible, precarious, impecunious position in every conceivable respect. He's a debtor. He is one who has not paid his dues. He was made to live and to pay glory to God. He hasn't done it. All of sinned and come short of the glory of God. The law makes its demands, and man can't pay them. No man has ever done so. The apostle has proved that with regard to Jews and Gentiles once and for all.

But not only is man a debtor; he's a thief. He's a robber. He has taken things that don't belong to him. He's appropriated them unto himself. The gifts that God gave him, that were intended to be used to the glory of God, man has used for his own glory. He's a thief and he's a robber. On top of it all, he's ungrateful. Now, this, of course, is the great theme of the whole of the gospel. You remember our Lord himself puts it unforgettably in that great parable that he utters at the end, as it's recorded at the end of the seventh chapter of the gospel according to St. Luke.

You remember that great incident. A certain Pharisee invited our Lord to go into his house to dine. I'm reading from about verse 36 onward. Our Lord accepted. And the Pharisee, we are told, which had bidden him, when he saw it, namely, that the woman had come along and had washed our Lord's feet with her tears and had wiped them with the hair of her head, this man spake within himself, saying, "This man, if he were a prophet, would have known what and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him: for she is a sinner."

Then our Lord, you remember, spoke a parable. "There was a certain creditor which had two debtors: the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty. And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both." Now, that's the point. They had nothing to pay, both of them. That is the position of the whole of mankind as our Lord goes on to prove in that particular case. Nothing whatsoever to pay.

Mankind, if you like, is like the prodigal son. Lost everything. All his money had been spent. He's got nothing left, and no man gave unto him. He's completely destitute. That's mankind in sin. Yet, you see, men go to God and they claim, they demand. They say, "Look at the life I've lived. Look what I've done. Look at my disposition." They present their bills to God. They say, "This is what I've done for you. Now then, I expect to go to heaven because of that." They claim forgiveness if they should fall into sin in terms of this goodness of theirs and this merit that they've been accumulating.

Now, this is the thing that is here being ridiculed again, I say, out of court. Who is this, says the apostle, who can present a claim to God or a demand or a bill and say, "I've given; give me back or give me a reward for what I've done"? And his answer is, you see, that there is none. There is no one. Man's a pauper, a debtor, he's nothing. Having nothing, he is still in this awful debt, and he's got nothing whatsoever to pay.

That's just his way of saying, you see, that salvation is entirely of God, it's entirely of grace. Salvation is the free gift of God to totally undeserving sinners. By grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God. Man not only doesn't deserve it; he deserves the exact opposite. He is not only weak and helpless; he's an enemy of God. A rebel against God, and he deserves richly eternal damnation. That's what man deserves.

But God, in spite of it, from his own free rich grace, the riches that the apostle has been talking about, gives man salvation as a free gift. Salvation is in no sense whatsoever a response on God's part to something that man has first done. It is the exact opposite. The movement is entirely and altogether of and from God, and man contributes nothing at all. The apostle has already told us in the fourth verse of the second chapter that it is the goodness of God that leads us to repentance. Faith is the gift of God. No man can believe without this gift of faith. A man is dead in trespasses and sins. He needs to be quickened. God does it.

So as he starts it, he continues it. We have seen in chapter 8 that the final perseverance of the saints is solely due to the fact that it is God's from beginning to end, and there is no other explanation. So, you see, as the apostle contemplates all this, he feels that there is nothing that can be done except that a man should worship and praise and burst out in a kind of heavenly acclamation.

So he does. He says, having thrown out the challenge, "Who hath known the mind of the Lord? Who hath been his counselor? Who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again?" "What are you talking about?" says the apostle. "Of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory forever. Amen."

What's he mean? Well, you see, he works it up like this. Having argued it through like that, he says the thing is monstrous and ridiculous. God is, first of all, the source of everything. Who can give God anything? God is the source of everything. Isn't the first verse in your Bible this? "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." He made it all. He owns it all. The cattle on a thousand hills are his, says the psalmist. Everything belongs to him. Don't think you're giving God anything when you take your burnt offerings and sacrifice. He owns everything. The cattle on a thousand hills and everything else. They all belong to God. Nobody can give God anything.

Peter and the rest, you remember, praying in that room that was shaken by the power of the Spirit, you'll read of it in Acts 4, verses 23 and following, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord and said, "Lord, thou art God, which hast made heaven and the earth, and the sea, and all that in them is." Of him are all things. God, the everlasting Creator.

Yes, but not only are all things of God; all things are also through God, which means this: that he sustains everything, and that nothing would continue to exist were it not that God sustains. Now, this is often stated in the Bible. Let me give you perhaps one of the most graphic and great statements of this. You find it in Psalm 104. Let me read verses 28 to 31. Listen to this. He's talking about Leviathan. "These wait all upon thee; that thou mayest give them their meat in due season. That thou givest them they gather: thou openest thine hand, they are filled with good. Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled: thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust. Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created: and thou renewest the face of the earth. The glory of the Lord shall endure forever: the Lord shall rejoice in his works."

You see modern man with all his science and his discoveries, how proud he is. He thinks he knows such a lot. You know, he's only just fiddling with the hem of the garment. That's all. Nothing more than that. He's excited that he discovers certain things. What he doesn't know is this: that the great God who made it all is keeping it all going and sustaining it. If he withdrew his Spirit, it would all collapse. This is a work divided between the persons of the blessed Holy Trinity. In Hebrews 1 and verse 2, we read of our Lord that he upholds all things by the word of his power. You get the same idea in the first chapter of the epistle to the Colossians. So the apostle is summing all this up when he says "of him," yes, but "through him" also are all things.

Finally, it is "to him" that all things lead. Everything leads to God. Everything leads to the glory of God. This, to me, is the most thrilling thing of all: the whole of the cosmos is going to display finally the glory of God. Of him, through him, to him. The end of everything is the glory of God.

Now, even as things are at the present time, this is partly taking place. "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth forth his handiwork." Man doesn't see that, but it's happening. You get the same idea again in the first chapter of this epistle, verses 18 and forward. But there it is: the heavens declare the glory of God. Again, read that great 104th Psalm and you'll find it working out.

But then, we know that sin has come in, and there are briars and thorns and the whole creation groaneth, as he's told us in chapter 8. The whole creation groaneth together in pain until now. We read again in Hebrews 2 we see not yet all things put under man. The world at the moment is chaotic and there are all sorts of contradictions.

But, says the prophet Isaiah, looking forward, the revelation has been given to him, the day of God is coming. He says, "The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." That's coming. But let us put it again as the apostle has put it to us in this glorious eighth chapter. You remember it. "I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature, the creation, waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creation, the creature, was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him that hath subjected the same in hope. Because, listen, the creature, the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty, the liberty of the glory, of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption even of this body."

Well, there it is, you see. The apostle sees all this coming. As he puts it in 1 Corinthians 15 and in verse 28, another great declaration of this: "And when all things shall be subdued unto him," that is to say, the Lord Jesus Christ, "then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all." The glory of God. From him, through him, to him, are all things: to whom be glory forever. Amen.

Now, the apostle you see here has leapt on in this inspired imagination. He sees the glorious end. What he's saying is this. Now if this is going to be true of everything, the whole cosmos, the whole universe, oh, how true it is particularly in this matter of redemption. Nobody's given anything to God in any sense. Nobody ever can. The whole of redemption is all of God and has nothing from man. Man had no part whatsoever in the first creation, and he has no part whatsoever in the new creation. As the first creation is altogether of God, the new creation is altogether of God also.

God initiated it all. "Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect," says Paul in 1 Corinthians 2:6, "yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought: but we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden mystery, which God ordained before the world unto our glory." He initiated it. It's his idea. Nobody gave a suggestion. It's all his, in concept, in thought.

You've had the same again in that first part of the first chapter of Ephesians that we read just now. God initiated it, God thought of it, God puts it into practice. He's done so in his Son. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. When the fullness of the times was come, God sent forth his Son made of a woman, made under the law. Here in this epistle, we've had it: "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ." Why? Oh, "it is the power of God unto salvation." Then these great exclamations: "But God." "But now a righteousness from God hath been revealed." It is all of God. In thought, in concept, put into execution.

The Son has been sent by God. God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself. And it is all applied to us by the Spirit, whom the Father and the Son have sent into the church and the world. It is he who quickens us. "He hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins." He gives us faith, I say. He gives us everything. It is all the result of God's gracious, free grace and giving.

And why? Well, it's all designed, you see, to the glory of God. When God made man at the beginning, he made him for his own glory. The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever, as that first answer to the first question of the shorter catechism so rightly says. Man was made for the glory of God. And my friends, it is the same in redemption. What is the object and purpose of our redemption? Well, let Peter answer this time. 1 Peter 2:9. "Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people." What for? Oh, here it is: "that ye should show forth his praises," his excellencies, his glory, "who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light." To show his praises, his glory. It's all designed to do this.

The only reason why there is such a thing as salvation at all, why any one of us is saved, is the glory of God. Of him, through him, to him, are all things. Oh, we must go on repeating the negative. Man makes no contribution whatsoever. The apostle has stated this many times over, as we've seen. Listen. Chapter 5:6. "When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly."

Listen to him again. "God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." But it's even worse than that. "If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son." It is all of God. Man makes no contribution. We've seen what man is like in chapter 7. "We know that the law is spiritual but I am carnal, sold under sin." There's nothing good in me at all. "In me that is to say in my flesh dwelleth no good thing."

I've got nothing to contribute in any shape or form or in any manner. And then in Romans 8:3, in a striking manner, "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh." Man in his sinful condition couldn't keep the law. He can do nothing. He's completely failed. It's been proved. He was given an opportunity; he couldn't do it. "But what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God." Here's the glory of it. Here's the only possibility, here's the only answer. "God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh," that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

You see, man has contributed nothing whatsoever. It is all of God. The calling, the choice, the election, everything, justification to glorification, it is all, entirely, utterly, absolutely of God, and man doesn't contribute anything at all.

So I close with this. The test of our view of salvation and of redemption and the test of our appreciation of it is simply this: whenever you think of it, does it bring you to this doxology? If it doesn't, I take leave to suggest to you that you know nothing about it. If you, my friend, look back to your decision or anything in yourself, you're unlike the apostle Paul. If when you contemplate your condition as a Christian, as a saved person, if you don't come to this doxology, I say there's something radically wrong somewhere.

Man makes no contribution at all. I feel like saying what the apostle has said in the third chapter in verse 4. "Yea," he says there, "let God be true, but every man a liar." And any man who puts forward any claim to anything in himself, whether knowledge or understanding or righteousness or morality or anything, is a liar. It is all, entirely, utterly, absolutely of God.

So my dear friends, I leave you with a final question. Having gone through this mighty revelation of doctrine, having followed the mighty demonstration of the great apostle right away through until chapter 11 verse 32, you've listened to the apostle's doxology, where he ends by saying "to whom be glory," to him alone, "forever and ever." Here's my last question to you: do you say "Amen" to this? "Amen," says the apostle. Do you say "Amen"? What's it mean? It means this: that you confess that you are nothing, that you confess that you're a vile, hell-deserving sinner. That you acknowledge gladly that you are what you are solely by the grace of God. That you've ceased to defend yourself. You've ceased to try to excuse yourself. You've ceased to try to justify yourself in any way whatsoever.

I go further: that you have ceased to try to pit your mind against God's way. Are you still arguing against election? If you are, you haven't said your "Amen" to all this. Don't forget the mighty demonstration of chapters 9, 10, and 11. "The purpose of God according to election." Are you still standing up and putting your mind and your opinion against it? If so, you're not saying your "Amen" to this great doxology.

The man who says his "Amen" is the man who says "I am nothing and He is all. I know nothing, I can do nothing, I have nothing. I am simply a vile sinner. I owe all things to the grace and the glory and the mercy of God, and I give it him. I give it him with my lips. I confess him. I say I'm nothing. I say it is all of him. I do it by my life."

I am ready to say what Paul says, not only here but again to the Corinthians: "Of him," of God, "are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, redemption: that as it is written, 'He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.'" And I say "Amen" to it.

A debtor to mercy alone,

Of covenant mercy I sing;

Nor fear, with thy righteousness on,

My person and offering to bring.

The terrors of law and of God

With me can have nothing to do;

My Savior's obedience and blood

Hide all my transgressions from view.

What can we say? There's nothing to say except what the apostle says: "to whom be glory forever." Glory be to God the Father, glory be to God the Son, glory be to God the Spirit, great Jehovah, three in one. Glory, glory, while eternal ages run. Are you ready to say it with me? Amen.

Lord, thou seest us and knowest us. Thou knowest our hearts and their innermost secret recesses. We worship and adore Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. To thee be glory forever. Amen and Amen.