Beeson podcast, Episode 490 Dr. Mark Gignilliat March 31, 2020 Announcer: Welcome to the Beeson podcast coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University. Now your hosts, Doug Sweeney and Kristen Padilla. Doug Sweeney: Welcome to the Beeson podcast. I am Doug Sweeney here with my cohost Kristen Padilla, and we are glad that you've joined us. Let me thank you for those who've recently left us a review on iTunes. Reviews help expand the reach of our show, and so we're always grateful when you leave a review. If you want to send us a comment or if you have a question, you can email us at BDSinfo@Samford.edu. Today, we do not have a guest in the studio, but rather a wonderful sermon preached by one of our faculty members last fall that we want to play for you. Kristen, let me turn it over to you, tell us about what we're going to hear today. Kristen Padilla: Today, you are going to hear a sermon preached by our own Dr. Mark Gignilliat on October 16, 2019, as part of our fall chapel series on the hymns of scripture. Dr. Gignlliat, is professor of divinity at Beeson Divinity School where he has taught Old Testament and Hebrew since 2005. The text of his sermon is Romans 11:33 through 36, that rich doxological hymn that begins with, "Oh, the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God." Kristen Padilla: Dr. Gignilliat begins by addressing the difficult passages that precede the hymn found in Romans nine through 11 but he says, quote, "The difficult portions of the Bible exists to lead us to praise and doxology." I was moved to praise in doxology by the end of Dr. Gignilliat's sermon. And so whether you are walking in your neighborhood, driving, folding laundry, sitting at your desk, whatever you're doing today, we pray that today's sermon will be a word of encouragement for you. Doug Sweeney: Indeed. Mark Gignilliat is one of our most beloved professors and he is easily one of the most popular preachers and Bible teachers in our region. We commend him to you and we want to take you now to Hodges Chapel where you can listen to him preach from Romans 11, verses 33 to 36, a sermon entitled Soli Deo Gloria. Mark Gignilliat: Now reading of Holy scripture from Romans chapter 11, verses 33 through 36. "Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways. For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen." This is the word of the Lord. Audience: Thanks be to God. Mark Gignilliat: I think it's fair enough to say that Romans nine to 11 present some of the more challenging interpretive hurdles in all of the Bible. And we should expect some of these hurdles because the subject matter has to do with the mystery of God's being and his way with the world. These chapters, Romans nine to 11, raise really important questions. Questions like these. How can Gentiles have assurance in God's promises when Israel appears to have fallen off the redemptive railroad track? Mark Gignilliat: How do Gentiles share in the redemptive drama of Israel? Does Israel's rejection of Jesus mean that God has now rejected them? Is there a current moment of rejection determining their future status before God as well? Is God capricious and fickle? Does God's grace depend on the worth of the recipient? These are all gospel questions and Romans nine to 11 burrows right into them. Mark Gignilliat: Many of you students, may remember reading Augustan at some point in your career saying that the Bible is accessible and difficult at the same time. And the difficult parts of the Bible exists so Augustan tells us, to keep us humble in our reading of the Bible and to keep us curious, to stave off boredom as I think the term he uses. And I think Augustan is certainly onto something and Romans nine to 11 fits the bill. But I think Paul would also want to add one more feature to difficult texts and Augustan would certainly agree. Mark Gignilliat: The difficult portions of the Bible exist also to lead us to praise and to doxology. The hard and the daunting material, especially the material in the Bible, that forces us to acknowledge the freedom and the supremacy of God. They drive us to adoration and they drive us to praise. And here at the end of Romans nine to 11, standing before the mystery of God's grace and his providence, Paul invites all of us to join him in praise. "Oh, the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God." Mark Gignilliat: You see, the doxology here at the end of Romans 11, it's magnificent and it's melodic. If it's set to music, it's going to need trumpets and tympani's. It has a kind of bombastic feel to it. The hymn doesn't equivocate or clear its throat on the character of God, his wealth and his wisdom and his knowledge, these verses reveal to us the radiance of God's glory, and they leave us transfixed. Hymns like All Creatures of our God and King and Praise to the Lord the Almighty. Mark Gignilliat: These are fitting expressions of the exuberance and the force of Paul's doxology. But I think we do this hymn a disservice. If we fail to see that there are some dark clouds surrounding its silver lining. You see, the apostle Paul is weeping throughout Romans nine to 11. Like Moses before him, Paul asks in Romans chapter nine the unthinkable. He asked that he could be accursed, that he could be damned for the sake of Israel, his people according to the flesh. Mark Gignilliat: We see the apostle Paul here in grief and shock because he finds the current moment, the current circumstances of his people to be heartbreaking. They've all been snake bit and they refuse to look at the bronze serpent. So I don't want to overly psychoanalyze Paul this morning, but it's very hard for me to read our doxology without seeing streams flowing from the apostle's eyes and his heart. It's from the apostles own apostolic grief that he rings forth this majestic doxology. Mark Gignilliat: So in the midst of this grief, what can give Paul the confidence to sing out in this kind of praise? What fuels his confidence? And it might come as a bit of a surprise. It's not the catalyst that you might think would give us a kind of springboard and to exuberant praise. Are you ready for it? Here's the catalyst. Romans 11:32, "For God has consigned or shut up or enclosed all to disobedience so that he might have mercy on them all." Come again, Paul? Maybe not the verse you might think that would lead into this kind of praise, but for Paul, Romans 11:32 is riddled with gospel hope. Mark Gignilliat: God's grace, to borrow a term from John Barclay, is incongruous. The incongruity of grace. I like that phrase. It tells us something about grace not being compatible with the worth of the recipient. It's incongruous. Gentiles who are or wants to know people now in Christ, are a people. They're God's people, the very offspring of Abraham. How did that happen? The incongruity of grace. An ethnic Israel already knows their story. They know the character of their election. They've read Deuteronomy seven. It has nothing to do with their worth or their charm or their national aesthetic. It's based on the hounding initiative of God's grace, even though they've rejected Jesus Christ now. Mark Gignilliat: The future of God's dealings with Israel will be marked by mercy. How could it be otherwise if God's grace isn't based on the worth of the recipient? Israel's current disobedience will give way to God's mercy shown to Israel in Jesus Christ, all Jew and Gentile consigned to disobedience, so that God might show his mercy on all Jew and Gentile. So we're left with a question. How exactly is all of this going to happen? How will Israel's disobedience blossom into a future display of God's mercy in Jesus Christ? How is God going to show his mercy to all, Paul? Mark Gignilliat: We know that the church at Rome is really already exhibit a, that God is doing so with the Gentiles. How will he do it with Israel? Well, I think we know one thing for sure. Given what Paul has already said, that God's future mercy to Israel will take place only because of what God has already done in the true Israelite, Jesus Christ. What God has demonstrated in Jesus Christ, and I think this is really important. It's no stage along the way of redemptive history, a kind of stopping point or even a final stage of Israel's history. Mark Gignilliat: For Paul, the Christ event is the singular moment that gives meaning to the whole of Israel's history. That revealed moment in time transcends its moment in time and gives scope and shape to the whole of Israel's history. And not just Israel's history, but the whole history of the world. So there are no two paths to God's grace, a kind of Jewish path and a Gentile path. God's mercy is Christological shaped from beginning all the way to the end. We get this, Paul, you've been very clear about it this. But what's it going to look like? When is it going to take place? Mark Gignilliat: Well, what are the mechanics of world history that will lead to this final inclusion of all Israel being saved? This final display of the incongruities of your grace. And this is how Paul answers that question. "Oh, the depths of the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable are his ways? For who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid? For from him and through him and to him are all things to him be glory forever. Amen." Mark Gignilliat: That's a pretty fantastic answer. It's an apostolic answer. I don't know. My knowledge is limited, but I can rest assured in God's promises and I can rest assured that God knows and I'll praise him for it. See, the solace of Paul's grief and his hope for humanity, both Jew and Gentile, rest upon the character of God. And it's the character of God that fuels our praise and animates our songs. All through these chapters we've seen the pressure pot of Paul's anguish and his really dense theological argumentation building. Mark Gignilliat: And now the steam is getting let off and it's instructive for you and for me, what this form of explosion actually looks like. It's not despair, that sickness unto death. It's not even a tight and neat folding of all the loose theological ends. It's a rich and powerful and thick explosion of praise. What we are left with as we look to the uncertain future that lies before us, is the character of God and his grace. How will we navigate these complicated waters of life? By means of a confident hope and the majesty and the supremacy and the goodness of our God. Mark Gignilliat: "Oh, and by the way," Paul says, "You might want to express that confidence in singing." As Isaac Watts reminds us, "Let those refuse to sing who never knew our God." So what is it that Paul's singing about here? Well, you see it in your text. He's singing about the depths, the inexhaustible magnitude of God's wealth, of God's resources. Or in light of what Paul has said earlier in Romans 11, the wealth of his blessing to undeserving sinners. Mark Gignilliat: Paul sings about the depths of God's wisdom and his knowledge. In other words, we can think of God's wealth, wisdom, and knowledge in very general ways. His resources, his own counsel and understanding. God's omniscience and God's omnipotence. But we can also understand these three in more specific ways. The way that Paul uses these terms throughout his letters, as they reflect on God's grace to undeserving sinners revealed in his plan to redeem the world in Jesus Christ. And Paul wants you to sing about that. Mark Gignilliat: Paul also wants you to sing about God's power and God's providence. You see this here, God's judgements, his executive decisions are unsearchable. His ways, his ordering of the world to its own end, it's inscrutable. They're untraceable. Human beings do not have the ability to see the beginning thread of God's providential actions in the world and to trace them naturally to their end, connecting the dots all along the way. I mean, to say God's thoughts are beyond our pay grade is to say something rather silly. Mark Gignilliat: Paul wants you to know that God's mind, his providential plan to redeem Israel and the Gentiles, his overseeing of all creation to its redemptive end, it's unfathomable and it's untraceable. And admittedly, this leaves you and me, it leaves humanity in a vulnerable position of trust and dependence. It causes us to fear and it should. But Paul also wants the truth of God's complete otherness to draw you into praise and thanksgiving. Because the one whose otherness is his holiness is also the same one who handed over his son for you and for me. Mark Gignilliat: His fearful wisdom is always paired with the goodness of his grace. God is wise and patient. God is righteous and merciful. And because Paul is Paul, and if you prick him anywhere on his apostolic body, he begins to bleed the Old Testament. Paul then offers a whole litany of old Testament illusions, "Who has known the mind of the Lord then been his counselor?" These great Isaiahanic, themes of God's supremacy and the nothingness of idols, fuel Paul's praise here. "Who taught God knowledge or helped him to understand?" Isaiah asks. "To whom will you compare the Lord?" Mark Gignilliat: I hope when you students, who are here, all of us, when you have big decisions in your life, I hope that you have a whole battery of friends and family to whom you turn to for advice and counsel. You all know the scenarios, right? "Mom and dad, I met a young man and I think he's kind of special. What do you think? Or "Pastor, I want to go to seminary right away, but I've got some undergrad debt. What should I do? Should I work for a year? Or go right on in?" Mark Gignilliat: We seek this kind of counsel all the time, and the book of Proverbs tells us that we're wise for doing it, but not God. God is the creator of the universe. He operates from the seventh day of his creation, from his created rest where he governs all of creaturely affairs toward their redemptive end. We're mere creatures limited in our scope and in our knowledge. Where were you Job, when I made the foundations of the world? God's wisdom emerges from the singularity and the sufficiency of his own being. Mark Gignilliat: So forgive me for the indelicate nature of what I'm about to say, but here it goes. Our trying God never picks up the phone to ask someone for advice. He needs no counsel because he holds the infinite stretch of all knowledge and wisdom in his hand. His ways are inscrutable. And so Paul concludes this hymn here, drawing on the resources of the book of Job. Lots to say about that. But what does Job remind us? No one gives a gift to God to strong arm his Providence in a certain direction. Mark Gignilliat: There's no quid pro quo with God, because all things are from him and are sustained through him, and make their future movement toward him. He alone, receives the glory and we should praise God because of his power and his providence. Because God's power and his providence are always in accord with his patients and his mercy. You know, the elevated language and charged emotions that Paul exhibits here at the end of Romans 11, they provide for us the substance of our understanding of providence. They fuel our praise in the midst of a human struggle and the human struggles of life and the struggles of joy. Mark Gignilliat: I think texts like Romans 11, allow us to sing and hope and not in paralytic fear the following line that we just sang. "God moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform. He hides his footsteps on the seas and he rides upon the storm." William Cooper, the man of the 18th century, pinned that hymn. And he knew something about human suffering and despair. You may not know this about William Cooper, but he was converted in an insane asylum after his first bout with suicidal depression. Mark Gignilliat: He would have other significant seasons of paralyzing depression and it wouldn't be his last attempt at suicide either. But in that setting in an insane asylum, as apparently Cooper walked the halls of the asylum saying, "I am damned, I am damned." Cooper was converted under the force of the gospel as he read Romans three. So this is remarkable. This is what Cooper said about what the doctrine of justification by faith alone provided him in his own struggle. He said, "I saw the sufficiency of the atonement he had made. My pardon sealed in his blood. And all the fullness and completeness of his justification. In a moment, I believed and received the gospel." Mark Gignilliat: In the haunts of William Cooper's own depression and the liberation of the gospel in that moment. This is what he wrote from the insane asylum. "Struck by that light, the human heart, a barren soil no more, sends the sweet smell of grace abroad where serpents lurked before." Cooper had an unyielding commitment to God's saving grace. And he also had some very good friends, friends like John Newton that sustained Cooper through his life. Those were his lifelines. Mark Gignilliat: But this is the hard part of the story. Cooper was never cured of the seasons of the depression that would come like a dark cloud on the horizons of his life. So whenever I sing, God moves in a mysterious way, one of my favorite hymns for sure, and come to verse three and read this. It takes on a different light given Cooper's own story. "Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take, the clouds ye so much dread are big with mercy and shall break in blessings on your head." Mark Gignilliat: I can't help but think about how personal those lines must have been to Cooper. Because when the depression would come back, the letters that he would write to his friends in the seasons of despair that he had were nothing less than horrific. Cooper thought it was cruel that God let him live, and yet when the clouds would disappear again and he could see the sun, he could write thoughts like this, "Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust him for his grace behind a frowning providence, he hides a smiling face." Mark Gignilliat: You see, Paul had experienced the heavy hand of God's providence in Romans nine to 11. And it moved him in his own sorrow to praise and thanksgiving, that God is wise enough and he is strong enough and he is gracious enough to move all things to their proper end from the whole course of human history to the particularities of our individual lives. I think Paul would have really liked William Cooper's hymn, especially that part where he tells us to trust God for his grace. And also that part where he tells us that behind a frowning providence, he hides a smiling face. Amen. Kristen Padilla: You've been listening to the Beeson podcast. Our theme music is written and performed by Advent Birmingham of the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama. Our engineer is Rob Willis. Our announcer is Mike Pasquerillo. Our co-hosts are Doug Sweeney and myself, Kristen Padilla. Please subscribe to the Beeson podcast at BeesonDivinity.com/podcast or on iTunes.