The Poetry Of Faith
THE POETRY OF FAITH
ROMANS 11:30-36
Praise God, the source, director and goal of all things!
Paul’s deep theology here turns to poetic praise and adoration. God’s last purpose for humanity has been set out powerfully. He intends mercy for Jews and Gentiles alike. Human rebellion itself is to submit to God’s vast plan, for it has been shown that God has permitted all people, Jews and Gentiles, to fall into a common disobedience, in order that both, reduced to a common humility and conviction of sin, may turn in penitence to the acceptance of his grace (11:32).
We need not linger over the meaning of “mercy upon all” (11:32). Paul has been accused of universalism at this point, but that reproach would again involve him in self-contradiction. His words mean no more than that God’s mercy is equally available to all.
The truth more properly considered here is the fact, demonstrated in our spiritual experience, that no situation is beyond the transforming power of God. In our personal lives, it is found true that anything, good or evil, triumph or disaster, success or failure, loss or gain, all things, committed in utter faith to God, can be transformed into blessing. This is one of the basic truths of Calvary. And what is experimentally true in personal experience is also true in the wider context of universal history. In this we begin to gain a glimpse of a final consummation in which sin, the fall, pain, and all the haunting inexplicable realities, will be at last drawn into a final superbly satisfying pattern of blessing. And so the God who directs, also permits, and in the end commands all things to serve him. But how important it is for the modern mind to think of both a directive and a permissive will, if God, in the context of such Providence, is to be rightly understood. For final encouragement in concluding reading these difficult chapters, turn to Peter’s remark in 2 Peter 3:15f.