Do we sometimes lose the wonder of the fact that we have our existence from God and we exist for God? For Paul, this simple, basic fact wasn’t something to grudge, or to disregard. Instead, Paul grounds everything in this given and delights to glorify God. Hand in hand with offering us the comfort of knowing that our good God is in control of everything there is and everything that happens, this truth draws us on to take delight in God and our total dependence on Him. In the following updated extract, we can see that this is how John Brown of Wamphray understands Paul’s message in Romans 11:36, “For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.”

It is our ignorance of our dependence on the Lord that makes us ready to quarrel with Him for arranging things for us otherwise than we would wish. If we knew at all that we had our life and all from Him, we would not grow as proud as we do, nor think that He wrongs us, whatever He does. God is obliged to none, but may do with all His creatures as He pleases.

God’s glorious independence

“Of him are all things.” God, whose being is in and of Himself, His name being I AM THAT I AM, is the sole author of being to all His creatures, great or small. “Of him are all things.” All of them, however glorious they may be, are only pieces of life and being borrowed from the fountain and well-spring of all being. He is the first cause of their being, and from him alone they have the being which they have.

“Through him,” or “by him,” are all things. That is, as they have their being from God, so they have their dependence on Him. They would not subsist in their being without Him; When God has given a being to His creatures, and brought them alive them with a ray of His life, they cannot subsist without Him; he is the preserver of both man and beast, and of all things. He has framed the creature in such a way that it must owe its dependence to its Creator every hour and moment, and must be preserved by Him. He who first kindled this spark of life in the creature must keep blowing at the coal constantly, or else it will die out again, for in him we move, we live, and have our being (Acts 17:28). “Through him are all things.” The creatures would fall into pieces, if the same omnipotent hand as gave being to start with was not still upholding.

“To him are all things.” They are not ordered for themselves, as their ultimate end, but for Him and His glory. As the being of all creatures came first from God the ocean of all being, so like a stream it must run back into Him again. He Himself was the ultimate end of all these borrowed beings, and there is no creature, no human being nor angel, that is created for themselves. Instead, God’s giving them a being, and preserving that being, and disposing of it, is wholly for Himself, the author of all. God may dispose of all His creatures, to whom He was graciously pleased to give a being, as suits best with His own ends. Just as all things are of Him, and through Him, so “all things are to him.”

Our songs of praise

Then Paul adds a doxology, saying, “To him be glory for ever. Amen!” This is a song of praise acknowledging God (of whom, through whom, and to whom are all things) to be worthy of glory and honour — not for a short time, but for evermore.

The apostle cries out, “To him be glory!” When ministers deliver truths concerning God’s goodness towards us, it is commendable that they do so in such a way as to teach the people what their duty should be in reference to it. By their own example, they can go before them in a song of praise, like Paul here.

Never should we hear of anything received from God, but our hearts should be raised up to sing a song of praise to Him. Especially we should praise when we hear of His bestowing on us a natural being, or a being in grace, and preserving us in that state.

In all our songs of praise to God, for all His benefits bestowed on us, we must give nothing to Him of our own. Our best way to praise Him is to acknowledge Him to be glorious and excellent in Himself, and worthy of all glory and honour from others, and to wish that this glory of His would be known to all, and acknowledged and declared by all. “To him be glory!”

As God’s end in creating all things was the manifestation of His own glory, so a gracious soul should and will join in here with God, and do what they can to promote and advance the same purpose, and so wish that God would get glory of all things, seeing it is His due. When the apostle has said, “To him are all things,” that is, “to his glory and honour,” then he adds, “To whom be glory!” “I am heartily content with that, and wish it may be so; and O that it were so!”

God is worthy to be extolled for ever and ever, and his glory cannot be adequately seen or shown. Correspondingly, a gracious soul rightly affected with the sense of God’s goodness towards itself or others will be so ravished with the desire to have God extolled and magnified that it will not take put a time-limit on the matter. It will take an endless age to get His glory set out. A soul truly conscious of His goodness will see it to be something that they are not able sufficiently to extol him for in time, and will therefore cry out with the apostle here, “To him be glory for ever!” (See Gal. 1:5 and 1 Pet. 5:11).

Our desires to extol and praise God should be real, hearty, sincere and earnest, and not merely superficial compliments. If they are real, we may rest confident and be sure that God will have glory to Himself by his works of creation and providence. Paul closes his song of praise with an “Amen!” Saying “amen” not only indicates the vehemence and earnestness of our desire to have it so (it means the same as “so be it”), but it also indicates a conviction or confidence that it will be so as we say (“it shall be so!”). On this score we add “Amen” to our prayers, and likewise to our praises.

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