Introduction

I am ending the year with some topical studies that help us order our lives by means of the grand historical perspective given in Scripture. Two questions dominate my concerns in the up coming messages: 1) What is the great end of it all, the final end of history? 2) And how can I bring my life into harmony with that great end?

To answer these questions we must give attention to God’s chief end. Then, knowing God’s chief end, we can focus what ought to be our chief end. So today I want to consider Romans 11:36 under the title, "God’s Chief End and Ours." I will deal with this in three stages: characterizations, clarifications, and implications.

1A. Characterizations of God’s Chief End

In a word, here is how I want to characterize it. This end is a comprehensive God-centered purpose.

1B.. First, working backwards, this end is a purpose. It is a comprehensive God-centered purpose. Paul says, "from him and through him and to him are all things." Notice the key prepositions: from, through, and to (NIV, literally we have out of or out from, by means of or through, and unto or toward). It is from this last preposition (unto or toward) that the notion of an end is derived. Things are moving toward something. That to which they move is their end.

So the end is not simply the final unit in a series like "The End" on the last page of a book. Instead, the end has the richer sense of purpose. There is something to be attained, an objective, or a goal. Life is not meaningless. It is not without purpose. There is a goal. The end toward which things move is the goal set for them.

This first point is very simple and basic and stresses the fact that the end that we are talking about is not a final terminal point but a purpose (goal, objective).

2B. Second, it is a God-centered purpose. What is the goal, the objective, the purpose or end of all things? I ask that question rhetorically. Before you fix on your answer, let me be very plain with the question. Divide Romans 11:36 into part a and part b, two sentences each with a period. Now looking at part a (the first sentence), what is stated as the goal toward which all things move? The goal is God: "to Him" (the covenant keeping God, 11:27-35)." Perhaps this is so obvious that it goes without saying. But I am not sure that it is that obvious because we keep getting it wrong.

We are here for God. History rolls steadily forward for Him. "The Lord hath made all things for himself" (Prov. 16:4, KJV). He is Himself the great objective and goal of creation (Col. 1:16, "all things were created by him and for him"). There is a personal dimension to the ebb and flow of things. We are not part of a mass of brute forces, facts, and events. Rather, we are part of a mass of forces, facts, and events that serve a person, the Lord God. They serve Him. They are for Him.

From 11:36b we have another answer to the question, "what is the purpose of all things?" It is for Him in that it is for His glory. Paul ends the verse with the phrase "To him be the glory forever! Amen." We obviously have an exalting in the Lord. "Glory" here is not a reference to God’s glorious attributes directly. It does not say that in Him is the glory forever. What we have here is an ascription of glory to God. The goal ends with Him, it is for His glory. Thus He has made the display of His majesty, beauty, perfection, and excellence the grand purpose of history. The end is a God-centered purpose.

3B. Third, it is a comprehensive God-centered purpose. Comprehensiveness is suggested by the relationship that exists between God’s purpose and the series leading toward it (pointing, leading, moving to it). The purpose is related to the beginning, the middle, and the ending of the series. We can consider each part and more (the whole and beyond the whole).

1) Let’s begin at the beginning. All things are from God (Rom. 11:36a). The end is the purpose that obtained from the very beginning (all that is for Him is from Him by creative power). It explains why there was a beginning in the first place. "All things" were brought into being for a purpose, for God’s purpose, for the purpose that centers on Him, for the grand display of His glory. We can reflect on Genesis 1-2 in this light and ask, "Why did God create the world?" "Why did He create the heavens and the earth?" Why did light come into being on the first day?" "Why did God work in six days and rest on the seventh?" We have an ultimate answer: it is for Him, it is for His glory. The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof; the earth and its fullness are for Him.

2) What is in the middle? All things are through Him (Rom. 11:36a). They not only exist by God’s creative power but they move from the beginning to the end by His active agency. This is a condensed way of saying that God is the providential ruler of all that He created. He is the active agent that sustains the creation across time. He is the sovereign Lord of history "who works all things after the counsel of His will" (Eph. 1:11). It all moves steadily along toward its goal through Him. The middle is the history of the creation.

But we must be more specific. The middle is the drama of redemptive history since the fall. Thinking of the biblical record, redemptive history spans the ages from Genesis 3 to the end of the book of Revelation. This verse (Rom. 11:36a) succinctly tells us that every stage of redemptive history; every part of redemptive history is due to His active agency and is directed to the God-centered purpose, which is His glory. We fall short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23). But by the coming of Christ and the gift of righteousness that we have through His death and resurrection we have been made vessels of mercy to whom God will make known the riches of His glory (Rom. 9:23, the question of the verse evidences its own answer). Our salvation is inseparably tied to His glory.

Accordingly, this God-centered end dominated the life of our Lord. For example, looking at the cross by which He would redeem us, Jesus recoiled but exclaimed, "Father, your will be done, Father glorify your name" (Jn. 12:28; Mk. 14:36). At the middle of the middle is the life work of Christ. What sustained Him in the hours of suffering? What encouraged Him in the hour of His deepest humiliation? He had a purpose that was eminently expressed in prayer: "Father, glorify your name."

3) Of course, the series has a final point of termination. It will come one day to the end. This God-centered purpose is related to the final destination point (to the ending). That point in time is ordained by God and will be reached by His providential governance. As He counted out the days of the ancient king Belshazzar so He counts out the days of creation history. God set the terminal point of history in accord with how it will serve His glory. The ending serves His end. The end of a book is also part of what a book is for. Just as every page is directed to His chief end, so is the last page of the book.

4) This goal that God has is the objective that is realized by the whole series from beginning to end in each part and as a whole (all is for Him, the beginning, the process, the close; each part and all of it together). God’s end is His purpose that engulfs the whole series from beginning to end governing the middle and transcending both the beginning and the end. He existed before the beginning of history and He will exist beyond the end of history.

All things that have been created by God and that are sustained by His providential governance have been created and are providentially sustained for Him. If you ask, "what is the whole series for?" then you begin to take in some of the magnitude of God’s purpose. It is all for Him, it is all for His glory. Nothing is left out of the picture. Nothing occurs unless it serves to magnify the glory of God.

This is profoundly comprehensive purpose. It is huge, profound, and magnificent. It takes in the whole earth, the galaxy in which the earth orbits, the galaxies, the universe, the heavens and the earth and all their host.

5) But the end is found beyond the ending. God’s end or purpose abides into the unending ages of eternity (Rom. 11:36b, "into the ages"). It takes all things in on an historical plane from the beginning to the very end of the history of the creation and beyond that history into the unending ages to come.

Summary

What I have said so far is that God’s end is a purpose, a design by a personal designer. His purpose is God-centered. It is for Him; it is for His glory. And it is a comprehensive purpose that sweeps across the history of the very universe in its breath and touches the history of you and me in the person of Christ our risen Savior and the Lord of glory.  He is the Beginning and the End, the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last.

All things past, present, and future serve the singular end of God’s glory. His glory must be His chief and ultimate end. It is His most valued and sought after goal. It is His ultimate purpose that does not serve as a means to some further end but it is that which is sought for its own sake and for God’s own delight. It is the final end where all subordinate ends finally come to rest.

2A. Clarification regarding God’s end

1) This discussion brings up the question of pride.

Why can this be neither egotistical nor humble? I bring humble into view to make the point more firmly. Remarkably, humility does not apply to God because humility involves the acknowledgment of someone greater than oneself. Thus for us to be humble means that we recognize our comparative smallness before the infinite greatness of God (and how others are this way and that better than ourselves). Humility could only apply to Christ in terms of the mystery of the incarnation. As a true man He humbled Himself to do always and only the will of God and therefore He humbled Himself to death, even death on the cross. But as God, Jesus is not humble. Humility does not apply to God because it involves the acknowledgement of someone greater and there is no one greater than God is. He is the greatest and best of beings.

Now we might think that if He is not humble then He must be proud or egotistical since pride is usually thought of as the opposite of humility. To be brief in making this clarification, we simply need to define egoism as an undue estimate of oneself: "do not think of yourself more highly than you ought." So God is not egotistical or proud because knowing Himself perfectly He knows that He is the greatest and best of beings. There is no undue estimate of Himself. That is impossible.

Therefore humility and pride do not apply to God because on one hand as the greatest there are none greater for Him to humbly acknowledge and on the other hand knowing that He is the greatest prevents any prideful overconfidence or overestimation.

As a matter of fact, He rightfully takes delight in the reflection of His glory in and through all things (created and directed to His goal). God of course delights in the reflection of His glory. He is delighted to do this in truth knowing Himself perfectly. By contrast, we are like Cinderella’s sisters who want the mirror on the wall to speak, but we do not want it to tell the truth. This perspective helps us understand how it is that God does and does not delight in the judgment of unbelievers. That He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked refers to the fact that He does not delight in judgment in and of itself as an ultimate or final end. But He does delight to manifest the glory of His patience, righteousness, and mercy through judgment (Rom. 9:23).

2) We also face the "full bucket" problem

The "full bucket" problem begins with the premise that nothing can be added to a full bucket. Such is the case by definition. A full bucket is one to which not even a drop can be added. When told of this difficulty my sons always wanted to test the claim by filling a glass and letting the facet drip slowly. In would go a drop and nothing would spill out. So, they would say, "see, you can add to a full bucket." But I would reply, "keep letting the water drip into the glass. When it comes to the point where water spills out every time a drop goes in, then it is full. Then you have to admit that you cannot add even a single drop to a full bucket."

"To him be the glory forever! Amen" in Romans 11:36b is not speaking of something added to God’s glorious attributes. As noted earlier, what we have here is an ascription of glory to God. This is the answer to the "full bucket" problem because nothing is being added to the glorious nature of God in all of His matchless perfection. Instead, glory is being ascribed to Him. His glory is being reflected in and through His creation. That is His will, design, and delight.

So for clarification God is not egotistical nor is He mutable in seeking His own glory as the great, ultimate, and final end of all things. Pride does not apply to God because He knows Himself perfectly and has no undue estimate of Himself. And nothing is being added to His glorious nature. Rather, what He intends is the reflection of His glory through history in general and especially through redemptive history that centers on the risen Lord Jesus.

3A. Ethical Implication

Now that we have characterized and clarified God’s chief end it is time to note that His great end must also be ours. This is both a logical and an ethical must. There are four lines of thought here by implication.

1) Because everything exists for God, for the ultimate end of manifesting His glory, then that must be what we exist for. Everything is from Him, through Him and for Him. Glorifying God must be what we exist (and live) for as well. Of all the things that we ought to do, this ultimate end is an ultimate ought. Therefore, because glorification, praise, and honor will be given Him forever, then it is our obligation to glorify Him now.

2) Glory rightfully and appropriately belongs to God forever. He is perfect. He is the greatest and best of beings. He is all glorious, perfectly glorious such that no glory can be added to Him and none of His glory will ever fade. This is truth with an exclamation point. It is an enduring amen (Rom. 11:36b) because He is perfectly and aboundingly glorious. Thus, it rightfully and appropriately belongs to God as something to be ascribed to Him by His creation, especially by man, the highpoint of His creation. Because glory appropriately belongs to God, then we ought to acknowledge this fact by ascribing glory to His name and by honoring Him in all things. Because all things are for His glory then we ought to honor Him in all things.

3) Furthermore, we are designed to be His image bearers. This means that we were created in order to reflect the beauty of His holiness and truth in the world He has made for Himself. This is an ethical duty par excellence because it is a duty that arises from human nature by creation. Because we are His image bearers who are made for the express purpose of reflecting His glory, then it is a fitting duty that we now pursue all our days on this earth.

4) Finally, this is a goal that God seeks more than any other goal and He seeks this goal as a final end in itself with nothing further beyond it for which it is a means. It is also true that as His image bearers and as His children, we ought to follow His example. He seeks this grand end as His chief end; therefore, we ought to seek it likewise as our chief end. It is His ultimate end so it should also be our ultimate end. For Him all other ends serve this end; likewise, all other ends that we pursue should serve this end of bringing honor and glory to His Excellence.

This is of course confirmed all through Scripture. "Whatever you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God" (1 Cor. 10:31). It is God’s chief end and therefore our chief end as well. It is God’s chief end and ours.

Paul shows us how to engage in heartfelt and thoughtful worship.

He is deeply engaged in exultant exclamation: "O the depth…O the riches" of God’s thoughts and ways. They humble us. They humble reason. They lead the reasoning self to bowed head and bended knee "that our reasoning may at last end in admiration" (Calvin, 444).

From the dust before the Lord we must raise our voices and acknowledge our utter dependence and God’s absolute independence and sovereignty. No one has been His counselor, He is debtor to no one. His mercy is freely given in ways unsearchable by blessing the nations and the Jews through the disobedience of both (Rom. 11:31-32, from judgment on the Jews to mercy to the Gentiles, which in turn results in the blessing of the Jews)!

These thoughts are glorifying to God. They give Him praise and honor. But this is insufficient. Paul must rise even higher in praise, maximally higher. He thus reaches back to the beginning; that is, to a point beyond the beginning to the point of origin of all things in God. Then He races across time, space, and history. From the past across the present and beyond the future of all of created reality, He is catapulted in thought into the unending future: "From Him, through Him and to Him are all things. To Him the glory, forever. Truly."

All glory will be ascribed to Him into the unending ages of eternity. So, this must be the apex of worship here and now along the way. If you seek an ultimate answer to why you have been accepted by God, the answer is plain: it is that you "bring praise to God" (Rom. 15:7) and glorify Him for His mercy (Rom. 15:9).