Romans 11:36

“ For of Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things: To whom be glory for ever! Amen. ”

God's absolute independence, man's total dependence in everything which might be a matter of glory to him: such is the thought of this verse, the termination of this vast survey of the plan of God. The first prep. ἐκ, of, refers to God as Creator; it is of Him that man holds everything: “life, breath, and all things,” Acts 17:25. The second, διά, through, refers to the government of mankind. Everything, even the free determinations of the human will, are executed only through Him, and are turned immediately to the accomplishment of His designs. The third, εἰς, to, refers to the final goal. The word to Him does not refer to God's personal satisfaction, an idea which might undoubtedly be supported; for, as Beck says, “the egoism of God is the life of the world.” But it is more natural to apply the term to Him to the accomplishment of His will, in which His own glory and the happiness of His sanctified creatures blend together as one and the same thing. It has been sometimes attempted to apply these three prepositional clauses to the three persons of the divine Trinity; modern exegesis (Mey., Gess, Hofm.) has in general departed from this parallel; and rightly. When Paul speaks of God, absolutely considered, it is always the God and Father he intends, without, of course, excluding His revelation through Christ and His communication by the Holy Spirit. But this distinction is not raised here, and had no place in the context. What the apostle was concerned to say in closing, was that all things proceeding from the creative will of God, advancing through His wisdom and terminating in the manifestation of His holiness, must one day celebrate His glory, and His glory only.

The application of the word all things might be restricted to the two portions of mankind spoken of (as in Romans 11:32). But Paul rises here to the general principle of which Romans 11:32 was only a particular application, and hence also he substitutes the neuter all things for the masculine all. What is meant, therefore, is the totality of created things, visible and invisible.

The glory of God, the reflection of His perfections in all that exists, that glory, now veiled, in so many respects in the universe, must shine forth magnificently and perfectly forever and ever. For, as Hodge says, “the highest end for which all things can exist and be ordered, is to display the character of God.” This goal of history is, as it were, anticipated by the wish and prayer of the apostle: “To Him be glory!”

The first part of the doctrinal treatise had terminated in the parallel between the two heads of mankind, a passage in which there was already heard a more exalted note. The second part closed, at the end of chap. 8, with a sort of lyrical passage, in which the apostle celebrated the blessing of sanctification crowning the grace of justification, and thus assuring the state of glory. The third, that which we are concluding here, terminates in a passage of the same kind, a hymn of adoration in honor of the divine plan realized in spite of, and even by means of, human unfaithfulness. After thus finishing the exposition of salvation in its foundation (justification), in its internal development (sanctification), and in its historical course among mankind (the successive calling of the different nations, and their final union in the kingdom of God), the apostle puts, as it were, a full period, the Amen which closes this part of the epistle.

Never was survey more vast taken of the divine plan of the world's history. First, the epoch of primitive unity, in which the human family forms still only one unbroken whole; then the antagonism between the two religious portions of the race, created by the special call of Abraham: the Jews continuing in the father's house, but with a legal and servile spirit, the Gentiles walking in their own ways. At the close of this period, the manifestation of Christ determining the return of the latter to the domestic hearth, but at the same time the departure of the former. Finally, the Jews, yielding to the divine solicitations and to the spectacle of salvation enjoyed by the Gentiles as children of grace; and so the final universalism in which all previous discords are resolved, restoring in an infinitely higher form the original unity, and setting before the view of the universe the family of God fully constituted.

The contrast between the Jews and Gentiles appears therefore as the essential moving spring of history. It is the actions and reactions arising from this primary fact which form its key. This is what no philosophy of history has dreamed of, and what makes these chaps. 9-11 the highest theodicy.

If criticism has thought it could deduce from this passage the hypothesis of a Judeo-Christian majority in the church of Rome, if it has sought to explain it, as well as the whole of our epistle, by the desire felt by Paul to reconcile this church to his missionary activity among the Gentiles, it is easy to see from the passage, rightly understood, how remote such criticism is from the real thought which inspired this treatise. The conclusion from an altogether general application, Romans 11:30-32, in which he addresses the whole church as former Gentiles whom he expressly distinguishes from Jews, can leave no doubt as to the origin of the Christians of Rome. Supposing even that in Romans 11:13 he had divided his readers into two classes, which we have found to be a mistake, from Romans 11:25 he would in any case be again addressing all his readers. And as to the intention of the whole passage, it is evidently to show that those who should have been first, though now put last, are not, however, excluded, as the Gentiles might proudly imagine, and that if the πρῶτον, firstly, ascribed to the Jews by God's original plan (Romans 1:16) has not been historically realized (through their own fault), the divine programme in regard to mankind will nevertheless, though in another way, have its complete execution. Romans 11:32 is the counterpart of Romans 1:16. It is therefore to impair the meaning of this passage to see in it an apology for Paul's mission. The thought is more elevated: it is the defence of the plan of God Himself addressed to the whole church.