Of Him, Through Him, To Him Are All Things

SPEAKER 01 : 0:15

Paul has come to the climax of his arguments in regard to the salvation of Israel, where he reveals how God pitches one group against another and makes the other jealous of the other group so that they want salvation too. It’s amazing how he does it. He gives grace to those who were previously rejected, and then that grace boomerangs back onto the people that he’s trying to reach Israel, and so all Israel will be saved. And then he comes up with this passage. Well, not a passage, a quote, a word or two. Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out. And then verse 38. For of him and through him and to him are all things to whom be glory forever and ever. You know, sometimes I can’t believe how blind I have been over the years, how blinded to so many truths of God’s grace. I mean, I’ve been preaching it and teaching it, and I’ve come across verses like this, praise verses, and, you know, they seem so poetic and beautiful that you think that that’s the only truth. Paul had, or the writer had, in expressing them. He wants to praise God with poetry and beauty, but my goodness, I missed it. I wonder if you’ve missed it too. You know, it’s so hard to take seriously some of the verses that seem beyond our comprehension, beyond our ability to grasp. What is Paul saying here when he says, for of him and through him and to him are all things? You know, 1 Corinthians chapter 15 describes Jesus Christ restoring the kingdom to the Father. It’s a marvelous piece. You should read it again. Chapter 15, the latter part of it. Well, read the whole to get the context. But there Paul is describing how Jesus has gained victory over the powers of evil, and he is the resurrection from the dead, and as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive. And then he hands the kingdom back to the Father. Well, you see, the whole point of that is that of him, here we have it, for of him are all things. Of him means from him. Now, it’s hard for us to comprehend that all things are from God. But though we don’t comprehend it, we can believe it. The trillions of stars, the trillions now we know of galaxies even, I mean, it’s utterly beyond our ken to understand it, to grasp it. But they all came from him. And though sin is not from God in the sense that he is the creator of it, he chose to allow Lucifer to operate in his evil. And therefore, even sin and evil is from God, but not in the sense that God chooses to do evil and loves it, but rather in the sense in which God is going to reveal His grace and His mercy and His love through the evil that has come upon us, so that in eternity we shall know that the intimate love of God that we would never have known without the presence of evil. The fact that God intervenes in all our struggles and comforts us and sings with us and delivers us and sets us on high places when we have been down and out, that is God’s doing. And all these things are from him. You see, Paul is saying this because Israel went down. Oh, did they go down. Terribly down, committing evil, following the nations with their idols, in fact, doing worse evil than the nations around them. And God brought judgments upon them, but he also brought mercy upon them, and he tells them that he will forgive them of all that they have ever done, Ezekiel 16, and that he will raise the whole house of Israel from the dead. Now, all that you see is from God. You and I need to see that in our lives. The tragedies, the sorrows, the sins, the addictions, the evils that we have perpetrated, the things that we have done, yes, we need to be humble and repent of them, but we also need to know that God chose to allow them in our lives to allow us to do these things so that he would finally reveal his grace to us. You have to know that everything in your life, all the tragedies, the things that have brought so much suffering, are from God so that you can give thanks to him. Not that you thank him for the evil, but that you thank him for the grace that he has brought through evil. So from him come all things. And that truth gives us the basis for giving thanks and praise. But then it says through him. Now what would through him mean? If you explore the book of Romans and other passages of the gospel in the New Testament, you will discover that things coming through God come through Jesus Christ. Our salvation comes through him. Our righteousness comes through him. Our resurrection is through Christ. And on and on and on. Nothing that God has created is ever redemptive unless it is redemptive through his Son, because he has planned redemption of the world through his Son. And so all that you go through and have gone through, you will not be able to lift up your heart in praise to God for it until you believe that what has happened in your life has happened in and through Jesus Christ. Christ has experienced it with you. Jesus has gone through the sorrows with you. Jesus has even gone through the sins with you. He has suffered those sins along with you. He has suffered the guilt and the condemnation for them. That’s why he was on the cross. He was condemned for your and my sins. And all that we go through, therefore, when we understand it goes through Jesus Christ, brings us an intimacy with him that is incomprehensible without faith. You and I, in order to have courage, need to believe that. Now, you see, Paul is saying that in relation to Israel. Of God, from God, came Israel and came all the sins and troubles and evils that Israel committed, not because God created them, but because God allowed them to reveal His grace, all the tragedies that have come upon Israel. They have all come through Jesus Christ. Now Israel doesn’t know that yet, but in the kingdom, rather in the final judgment, Israel will be shown in intimate detail how all their sufferings came through Jesus Christ. And it will cause them to weep. They will look upon him whom they have pierced, and there will be sorrow, and that sorrow and mourning will lead them to God’s mercy. This is how it happens in Israel, and this is how it happens in our life too. You must not think of anything that has happened to you without the intimacy and the love of Jesus turning those tragedies into redemption. When things come through God, they come through Christ, because Christ is redeeming every incident and every trouble and every tragedy in your life. That is what Christ was doing in returning the kingdom to the Father. He will return the kingdom to the Father only when everything in the universe has come through him and been experienced through him until the victory is also his and their victory is through Christ. You and I need to come to believe that all that has gone on in our lives has finally come to a victory in Christ. Christ has gained the victory over every tragedy and sorrow and sin and trouble that we have ever and will ever go through. And then it says, and to him are all things. So you see, all things are coming from God, all created things coming from God in the universe, and they are going through the redemptive process that Jesus Christ went through for us so that they may come, go back to the Father. And they will go back to the Father redeemed. and resurrected. And this is the greatest hope you and I have, and it is why this verse is one of those magnificent verses that tell the truth about the salvation of all. Because all things are from him, and all things go through his redemptive work in Christ, and all things will return to him, for of him and through him and to him are all things. It is amazing. We don’t know why God is doing it this way. We just can’t understand why God has to have a fallen, broken, wounded, sinful, evil world before he can redeem it. Well, obviously, we know that he is redeeming it, but we don’t know why it has to go through this process, except, as I said at the beginning, alluded to at least, that when we go through the darkness, the valley of the shadow of death, we experience the comfort of the shepherd whose rod and whose staff they comfort us, and he causes us to lie down in green pastures, and to drink beside still waters, and all of that is God’s intimate caring for our souls in such a way that we would never have known it without evil, so that when eternity comes, we shall have an endless gratitude and praise in our hearts for what He has done and for the intimacy, the closeness that we share with Him. and so everything will return to God. Everything, all things. This is one verse that reveals, along with so many others, that all are going to be returned to God and restored ultimately. If you are going through the darkness right now, if you are going through terrible tragedies that you never thought would come upon you because you thought God was protecting you, Well, he is. He is still protecting you as he allows you to go through the darkness. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will not fear, for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Yes, from God are all things, through him, through Christ, are all things, who cleanses them, heals them, redeems them, so that to him, back to God, will go all things, so that we will all come out redeemed and full of joy. Thank you for listening today. Colin Cook here and How It Happens. You can hear this broadcast any time of the day or night on your smartphone. Simply download a free app, soundcloud.com or podbean.com and key in How It Happens with Colin Cook when you get there. Please consider a donation, would you, for the broadcast. This is listener-supported radio. 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