“For of Him, and through Him, and to Him,
are all things, to Whom be glory forever. Amen.”
ROMANS 11:36
In Romans 11:36 Paul sums up the preeminence of Christ into three expressions: “Of Him… through Him… to Him… are all things.”
“Of
Him” says that everything which exists – things in heaven, things in
earth, everything that was created, everything that has come into being,
everything
that will come into being – is created by, and because of, Christ.
“Through Him” says that everything which lives, moves, breathes,
operates, exists, or functions in this universe, whether animate or
inanimate, whether biological, chemical, spiritual, natural, or
cosmotological – does so through Christ, Who sovereignly upholds all
these things, determines their place, and keeps them in order. “To Him”
says that everything, no matter how far from God’s Thought it may be, no
matter how chaotic
things may appear, is being directed, summed up, and gathered together
into Christ. As the Alpha, all things flow from Him; as the Omega, all
things flow to Him.
That
is quite a paragraph. A paragraph like that cannot be grasped in one
reading. But that paragraph is, in essence, what Paul means, and what we
mean, by Christ having the preeminence in
all things. We are talking about Jesus as Lord over us individually,
over the Ekklesia corporately, and over all creation collectively. We
are talking about a preeminent Christ Who is exalted above every
principality and power, rule and dominion; things visible, things
invisible; things past, things present, things future; things in heaven,
things in earth, things under the earth: all things are of Him, all
things are through Him, and all things are to Him. That is preeminence.
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