Of him, and through him, and to him. — All things proceed from God, all things are made or wrought by Him, and all things exist for His glory, and to carry out His ends. It is a mistake to see in this, as some of the older commentators have done, an allusion to the Trinity. This can hardly be. The subject of the whole verse appears to be God the Father, and the prominent idea is rather the unity of creation corresponding to the unity of the Godhead. The whole system of things issues from and returns to Him, accomplishing in its course His beneficent designs. It is true, however, that the use of the prepositions is such as in more analytical passages would be taken to express the threefold relation (origination, mediate causation, and retrocession) which the doctrine of the Trinity embodies.

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