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Of Him, Through Him, and To Him

Romans 11:36

Here is an assertion of our great God’s glorious sovereignty. — “For of him, and through him, and to him are all things!” That is an absolute, unqualified assertion of unlimited, infinite sovereignty. Not only is the Lord our God supreme, he is totally sovereign. All things are of him. I place no limitations upon the sphere of God’s sovereignty. And I place no restrictions upon the works of God’s glorious sovereignty. He is totally and universally sovereign. Observe Paul’s language. “For of him, and through him, and to him are all things.” All things come from God. They are of God as to their source. They are through God as to the means of their accomplishment. And they are to God in their purpose. They are of him in the plan, through him in the working, and to him in the glory which they produce.

Creation and Providence

In all the works of creation and providence God is absolutely sovereign, and always exercises that absolute sovereignty (Genesis 1:1-5; John 1:1-3; Hebrews 11:1-3; Romans 8:28-30). God is before all things, and by him all things exist. There was a time when there was no one except the great I Am. God existed alone in the Trinity of his sacred Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. There was a time, before all time, when there was no day, but the Ancient of Days. In the infinite boundlessness of eternity God was alone in his glorious, ineffable Being. There was no sun, yet Jehovah dwelt in glorious light. There was no foundation for the earth, yet his throne was fixed and firm. There were no heavens, yet his glory was unlimited. God inhabited eternity in the infinite majesty and happiness of his own self-contained greatness. If God was indeed alone in eternity, the first thought, the first idea, and the first act of creation must have arisen from within his own infinite mind.

Eternal Decrees

All things are of God in plan, purpose, and design. Eternal wisdom gave birth to all the plans of all future creations. God ordained the size and orbit of every planet. God fixed the place of every star. God appointed the flow of every creek and river. God set the boundaries of the oceans. God determined the cycles of the wind. God ordained the height of every mountain and the space of every valley. God gave every creature of the earth his being, the place of his dwelling, the services he would perform, and the number of days he could live.

In his own glorious wisdom God mapped out the course of human history, and the course of every person in history. God ordained the heavenly host to be the servants of his chosen seed (Hebrews 1:14). God ordained the fall of our Father Adam. God ordained the entrance of sin into the world. God divided the race of humanity into the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman. God ordained the time and course of every event in all the lives of all before time began (Matthew 10:30). When the plan was all fixed and settled, and almighty God ordered his purposes, he created the world. Mere arrangement and purpose was not enough. There must be an act as well as a purpose. And that act was creation. The only instrument of creation was the Word of God. God spoke the world into existence by Christ, the Word. God created the world out of nothing. God created all things in the world. And God created man in his own image.

Don Fortner

Pastor Fortner’s