Ephesians 1:23 speaks of the church as the fullness of Christ, and Colossians 2:9 says, “In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” Everything of God is in Christ, and everything of Christ is in the church; therefore, the church is a great matter. Everything in the Godhead is expressed through Christ, and everything that is in Christ is expressed through the church. Just as everything of God is in Christ, everything of Christ is in the church. Just as Christ expresses God, the church expresses Christ. Whatever is not God is not Christ, and whatever is not Christ is not the church.
Who is Christ? Christ is God expressed in man. What is the church? The church is Christ expressed in man. God expressed from within man is Christ, and Christ expressed from within man is the church. The church is very special. However, this does not mean that Christianity is the church. In the eyes of God, the church is the fullness of Christ. The church is only the living out of Christ from within man. Anything that differs from this is not the church, even if there is only a slight difference. The church is the Body of Christ, the fullness of Christ.
What are the contents of the fullness? The Gospel of John is the first book in the Bible that speaks of the fullness. According to a basic principle in the Bible, the first mention of a matter establishes the definition and the principle of that matter. The first time the Bible speaks of the fullness in Christ is in John 1:1-18, which is an introduction to John and ushers us into the entire book.
The Gospel of John begins: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (1:1). This Word became flesh and tabernacled among us, and speaking of the Word becoming flesh, the Bible says that this Word was “full of grace and reality” (v. 14). This shows that grace and reality are the contents of the fullness. Verse 16 says, “For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace.” This shows that the fullness and grace are related. Verse 17 continues, “The law was given through Moses; grace and reality came through Jesus Christ.” This again shows that grace and reality are related to the fullness. From this chapter we must acknowledge that the contents of the fullness are grace and reality.
What are grace and reality? Outwardly, grace and reality seem to be two different things. In John 14:6 the Lord Jesus said that He is “the way and the reality and the life”; He did not say that He is grace. We cannot find one place in the Bible that directly refers to the Lord Jesus as grace, but we can find portions that speak of Him as the reality. John 1 puts grace and reality together; hence, we can see that grace and reality are not two separate things but are actually one thing. Grace is God giving Himself to man as man’s enjoyment. When God gives Himself to us, this is grace. Anything that God gives to us outside of Himself cannot be called grace; only when He gives Himself to us can that be called grace.
Whenever the Bible speaks of grace, it refers to God, the life of God, or matters related to life and redemption. Grace is a very specific term in the Bible, even though we use it too loosely. Some say that the birth of a child or purchasing a nice house is grace. That may be God’s kindness toward us, but please remember that the Bible never uses the word grace when speaking of such things. The Bible refers to such things as blessings or benefits from God, but it never uses grace in reference to such blessings or benefits. It seems as if the Bible has purposely set apart the word grace to refer to God and the life of God. In particular, John 1 presents the coming of grace as God coming to be received by man (vv. 14, 17). In the beginning was the Word, the Word was God, the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us, and through Him grace has come. We should realize that grace is God Himself to be received by man.
Grace is God Himself, and reality is also God Himself. Grace is God gained by us, whereas reality is God seen by us. Apart from God, everything we see and touch is vain, false, and unreal; only this One—God—is real. In other words, the Gospel of John reveals God to us, and this is reality; it also gives God to us, and this is grace. Chapters 1 through 21 in the Gospel of John speak of the aspects of God as reality and as grace. The incarnated One expressed God to man; this is reality. Through His death and resurrection He imparted God into man so that man can receive God; this is grace.
The Gospel of John also speaks of life. John 3:15 says, “Everyone who believes into Him may have eternal life.” Verse 36 says, “He who believes into the Son has eternal life.” Without God’s light we will see very little. However, when the Holy Spirit enlightens us, we will see that the Gospel of John reveals that the Word, who became flesh, declared the invisible God; only He has declared God. God was expressed through the Lord Jesus, and this expressed God is called reality. When people touched this person, they touched reality.
Jesus Christ enabled people to see God by expressing God; even more, He enabled people to receive God. God expressed to us is reality, and God received by us is grace. This is the Gospel of John. The Gospel of John gives us life. This Gospel says that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God. This Word became flesh and expressed God to men; what He expressed is reality. He also enables us to receive the God whom we have seen; the expressed God desires to enter into us to become our possession. When He enters into us, He becomes grace within us.
Paul said that he labored more abundantly than all the other apostles by the grace of God which was with him (1 Cor. 15:10). This grace is not something dead; this grace is the living God. This living God is with us; He is within us. Thus, the greeting and blessing that the apostle wrote at the end of Philippians says, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit” (4:23). Since the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ is in our spirit, grace is not something outward; grace must be something living within us, in our spirit. This grace is God received by us.
Grace is God, and reality is also God. The fullness of God or the fullness of Christ is God Himself. In other words, this fullness is grace and reality, and grace and reality are God Himself; therefore, this fullness is God Himself. The fullness in the Lord Jesus is God Himself, and it is all the fullness of the Godhead as well. Everything of God is in Christ and is the fullness.