“For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor?”
Romans 11:34, KJV
““For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?””
Romans 11:34, ESV
Table of Contents
Romans 11:34 Meaning – For who hath known the mind of the Lord?
[Paul] here, as it were, lays his hand on human presumption, and restrains it from murmuring against the judgments of a glorious Saviour.
He assigns two reasons against such complaints and murmurings.
All the race of mortals, according to his first argument, are prevented, by their complete blindness, from examining the predestination of God by their own proper judgment; and it is the height of rashness and folly to enter into disputes concerning a subject altogether unknown.
The second reason adduced by Paul is, that we have no cause for complaining of God, since no human being can boast, as if the Lord of all power was a debtor to man; on the other hand, all are dependants on his kindness and bounty.
Every inquirer into the secret counsels of infinite Wisdom should remember to confine his mind within the limits of the oracles of God, and never, in investigating the predestination of perfect Knowledge and Love, advance beyond the barriers of Scripture.
Although the lost children of Adam, as we know, can discern nothing in this subject with greater clearness than a blind man in the midst of the thickest darkness, yet the certainty of our faith, which arises not from the acute sagacity of human judgment, but the illumination of the Spirit alone, cannot be weakened or undermined by this cause.
For, according even to Paul himself, in another passage, who, though he affirms that all the mysteries of God far exceed the comprehension of our capacity, yet the faithful, as he owns, have the mind of the Lord; for they have not received the spirit of this world, but of the Fountain and Author of all good, who makes them acquainted with his otherwise incomprehensible kindness.
As, therefore, by our own powers, we are wholly unable to arrive at a certain acquaintance with the secrets of God, so, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, we are admitted to a sure and clear knowledge of these hidden truths.
If it is our duty to follow at present the leadings of the Spirit, we ought, when forsaken by him, to stop, and take, as it were, our stand.
Whoever affects to know more than the Spirit has revealed, will be overwhelmed by the immense splendour of his unapproachable light.
We must never lose sight of the distinction lately mentioned between the secret counsel of God, and his will revealed in Scripture.
For though the whole doctrine of the word of truth surpasses, in its sublimity, human genius, yet the faithful, who follow with reverence and soberness the guidings of the Spirit, are not debarred from approaching the records of eternal Wisdom; but the secret counsel of God, the depth and height of which can be reached by no inquiry, is to be considered in a very different point of view. (Isaiah 40:13; Wisdom 9:13 ; 1 Corinthians 2:16.)
Calvin, John – Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans tr. Francis Sibson (1834)
Three reasons [Reason 1, 2, and 3] he adds of both those deductions.
Reason 1. No creature hath pierced into the mind of God, none was ever of his counsel. Therefore the Counsels of God are past finding out, we ought not to search after them, but admire and magnify the riches of his wisdom.
Dickson, David – An Exposition of All St. Paul’s Epistles (1659)
In the words that follow there is an obvious allusion to Isaiah 40:13,14: “Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being His counsellor hath taught Him? With whom took He counsel, and who instructed Him, and taught Him in the path of judgment, and taught Him knowledge, and showed to Him the way of understanding?”
The question is equivalent to a strong negative. No man, no angel, has known the mind of the Lord, or been His counsellor; and, therefore, none can search His judgments, or find out His ways.
This is intended as a rebuke to that temper manifested by the unbelieving Jews, to find fault with the arrangements of the new economy, as being so very different from what they had anticipated — so different from anything which it could have entered into the mind of man to conceive.
It is man’s business, not to criticise and quarrel with Divine arrangements, but to submit to them; to watch with reverential curiosity the development of the Divine designs; to mark the displays they make of His various perfections— His wisdom and power, His righteousness and His grace; to admire their wisdom, in the degree in which we can perceive their objects, and how well fitted they are to gain them; to adore their depth, when we cannot discover their design; and to hold fast, in all circumstances, an unshaken confidence in Him as “the Rock, whose work is perfect, all whose ways are judgment; a God of truth, and without iniquity,” infinite in holiness and in love.
Brown, John – Analytical exposition of the epistle of Paul the apostle to the Romans (1857)
