Paul’s point is not simply that all things are the creative product of our great Triune God. Yes, all things, everything, came “from him.” He is the originating cause of everything that is. But Paul also tells us that everything that is, continues to “be”, continues to exist, and is sustained in being “through him.” He is the only reason there is something rather than nothing. But it is the final prepositional phrase that staggers the minds and imagination of us all. Everything that is, everything that continues to be, is “to him.” It exists to honor and glorify him. He is himself the purpose of his creative and providential activity.

Ours is a splintered, fractured world, that often in its differing political parties and conflicting ethical systems and its seemingly endless variety of opinions on virtually every imaginable subject holds out little hope for ultimate meaning. And yet in the midst of undeniable diversity and the differences that so often divide us, the Bible tells us that there is a single, overarching, unitary theme and purpose and goal to all of human history and experience.

The apostle Paul touched on this in several places. Let me mention only two. In Romans 11:36 he concludes a major section of his letter with this brief doxology: “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.”

Paul’s point is not simply that all things are the creative product of our great Triune God. Yes, all things, everything, came “from him.” He is the originating cause of everything that is. But Paul also tells us that everything that is, continues to “be”, continues to exist, and is sustained in being “through him.” He is the only reason there is something rather than nothing. But it is the final prepositional phrase that staggers the minds and imagination of us all. Everything that is, everything that continues to be, is “to him.” It exists to honor and glorify him. He is himself the purpose of his creative and providential activity.

This is much the same thing that Paul said in Colossians 1:15-17. There he speaks specifically of God the Son, the second person of the Triune Godhead:

“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities – all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

There it is in black and white: all things were created “for him.” Jesus Christ is the purpose of everything that exists.

I could cite numerous other biblical texts that make the same point. And that point is that in everything God does, whether in the OT or the NT, is intended to point to Jesus. He is the point of it all. He is the purpose, the goal, the aim, the pinnacle of all that God says and does.

All of you, I’m sure, are aware that Jesus himself declared that he was the center and the focus and the substance of all of Scripture. As he walked the Emmaus Road with his disciples after the resurrection, he lovingly rebukes them for failing to understand that everything written about him “in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled” (Luke 24:44).

Some people are skeptical when they hear someone say, as I am saying, that all of Scripture, indeed all of human history, is about Jesus. They think this will lead to superimposing on biblical texts and stories an artificial principle that will distort what the Bible is actually saying. I couldn’t disagree more.

The Son of God, second person of the Trinity, is present from the very beginning of human history. He is prefigured and prophesied, symbolized and typified, on almost every page of the Bible. Just a few examples (that I will combine to make ten) should suffice.

(1) No sooner had Adam and Eve fallen into sin than God gives this promise. In declaring judgment on the serpent, he says: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Gen. 3:15). Jesus is himself the offspring or seed of the woman who will ultimately destroy Satan and all his works.

(2) Jesus is himself the consummate ark in which God’s people are preserved from the waters of judgment and death.

(3) When Abraham was told to take his son, his only son, Isaac, and offer him as a sacrifice on the mountain, Isaac was the one who, like Jesus, carried the wood on his back to the place of sacrifice. He did this all the while Abraham knew that he would receive his son back from death. So too with Jesus and his resurrection.

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