Bible Commentaries

Romans 11:36

God's Creative and Providential Government.

I. All things are of God. All the good is of God by authorship, all the evil is of God by permission. In the great things of redemption all things are emphatically of God. For there is no spiritual life in the soul of a fallen man. If it ever lives it is through the vivifying energy of God's Holy Spirit. He excites the prayer and the desire to pray; He gives the ability to pray; His mercies yearned over us; so that He sent His well-beloved Son to die for transgressors. And His justice accepted a vicarious offering, and His faithfulness is pledged to cast out none who come unto Him through Christ.

II. All things are through God. We consider the first fact as referring to creation; the second merely to the providence of God. Elevated as God is above all that is human, why should we imagine that the scale on which we estimate proportions is that on which He estimates them, so that what we count great or small is similarly accounted by God? We believe of God's providence that it extends itself into every household, throws itself round every individual, takes part in every business, and is concerned with every sorrow and accessory to every joy. All things are through God as well as of God.

III. All things are to God—they conduce in one way or another to God's glory. Though to our dim reason many things seem rather from God, yet the day of judgment will discover that tribute is rendered faithfully and the very uttermost farthing is exacted, as well from sin which has scorned, as from guilt which has sought forgiveness through, the Redeemer's blood

H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 1914.

References: Romans 11:36—G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines, p. 37; Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 322.