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! Romans 11:33
You may have seen the same bumper sticker: ‘No matter what the question is, the answer is Jesus Christ’. There is more of the sublime than the simplicity in that statement! Just think of the reasons why we ask questions. We ask either because we want to know something, or because we want to understand something. If we want to know something, a good answer gives us knowledge. If we want to understand and use something correctly, a good answer gives us wisdom. Colossians 2:2,3 tells us ‘of Christ, in Whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge’. So that means the bumper sticker was correct. When our text today speaks of the wisdom and knowledge of God, it is referring to Jesus Christ. And it emphasizes the depths of His riches.
Is it any wonder that God calls every atheist a fool (Psalm 14:1)? If you do an Internet search for the most prominent atheists, you will come up with a list of people who have also been recognized as having the most brilliant minds. And it is true that these people have a great deal of knowledge. But there it ends. Knowledge without wisdom is the greatest of folly. And there is a great gap in the knowledge of these knowledgeable people. They don’t know Christ. Not like the apostle Paul did, as he describes in Philippians 3:8: ‘Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ’. That one gap in the knowledge of the atheists takes on the width of eternity when they stand at the Great White Throne and confess with bended knee that they were wrong about the only thing that mattered.
Our text speaks of the depths of the riches. Most of us know little of riches in an earthly sense. The millionaires and billionaires with all their money are in the greatest of poverty if they lack Christ. Their monetary wealth is finite, and it is fleeting, never lasting beyond their lifetimes. But the depths of the riches of Christ have never been sounded. Not only are the cattle on a thousand hills His (Psalm 50:10), but so also are the pearly gates and jasper seas of Glory. Heaven in all of its unexplainable splendour will endure after all of earth is ashes, and it is all His. But there are also the riches of His grace, whose exploration will take us all of eternity. And the riches of His love, infinite and precious and unconditional.
Paul exclaims ‘O the depth of the riches…’ Does it not cause us to exclaim today as well? – Jim MacIntosh