According to Ephesians 1:23, the church, Christ’s Body, is “the fullness of the One who fills all in all.” The Body of Christ is His fullness. The fullness of Christ issues from the enjoyment of the riches of Christ. Through the enjoyment of Christ’s riches we become His fullness to express Him. This is the fullness of Christ as the One who fills all in all. Christ, who is the infinite God without limitation, is so great that He fills all things in all things. Such a great Christ needs the church to be His fullness for His complete expression.
It is in the transmission from the ascended Christ to the church that the Body of Christ is the fullness of the One who fills all in all, because the Christ who fills all in all is in the transmission. The transmission connects us to the all-filling Christ. In this way the church becomes the fullness of the all-filling Christ.
Ephesians 4:10 says, “He who descended is the same who also ascended far above all the heavens that He might fill all things.” First Christ descended from heaven to earth in His incarnation. Then He descended further, from earth to Hades, in His death. Eventually, He ascended from Hades to the earth in His resurrection and from the earth to heaven in His ascension. Through such a journey Christ cut the way so that He might fill all things.
The thought in Ephesians 4:10 is profound. Christ was in the heavens. Through incarnation He came down to earth as a man and lived on earth for thirty-three and a half years. Then He died on the cross, descended into Hades, ascended in resurrection from Hades to earth, and then ascended to the third heaven. By means of such a traffic of descending and ascending He fills all things. Now Christ is everywhere, on the earth as well as in the heavens.
Christ is the First and Last (Rev. 2:8; 1:17; 22:13). For Christ to be the First means that none is before Him, and for Him to be the Last means that none is after Him. The Lord told the suffering church in Smyrna that He is the First and the Last. This indicates that no matter how great were the sufferings through which He passed, those sufferings could not terminate or damage Him. He was the First, and eventually He was also the Last. In suffering the church needs to know that Christ is the First and the Last, the ever-existing, unchanging One. Whatever the environment may be He remains the same. Nothing can precede Him, and nothing can exist after Him. All things are within the limit of His control.
When the Lord told the church in Smyrna that He was the First and the Last, He was indicating that the church should be victorious, not defeated by any kind of suffering. The church should pass through all suffering and come to the end, because the Lord, who is the life and Head of the church, is the First and the Last.
Christ is not only the First and the Last but also the beginning and the end (Rev. 22:13c). Christ is not only the First but also the beginning, not only the Last but also the end. The First indicates that nothing is before Him, whereas the beginning means that He is the origination of all things. The Last indicates that none is after Him, whereas the end means that He is the consummation of all things. Hence, not only is there nothing before or after the Lord Jesus, but also there is no origination or consummation without Him.
In addition to being the First and the Last, and the beginning and the end, Christ is the Alpha and the Omega (Rev. 22:13a). We may be troubled by these terms and think that they are repetitious and that the beginning, the First, and the Alpha are the same and that the end, the Last, and the Omega are the same. But this is not a matter of repetition but of different aspects. Being the first does not necessarily mean that one is the beginning. Being the first simply means that one is the first and that prior to that one there was nothing. However, to be the beginning does not mean only that one is the first but that also one has begun something. What, then, is the difference between the Alpha and the beginning? A certain thing may be the beginning, but it may have neither the content nor the continuation. For Christ to be the Alpha and the Omega means that He is the complete content and continuation. As the Alpha and Omega, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, Christ is also every other letter in the alphabet. This means that Christ is the content and continuation of God’s operation, for He is not only the beginning and the ending but also the Alpha and the Omega.
In order for Christ to be the beginning and the ending, it was necessary for Him to take certain actions. Christ is not only the First but also the beginning, the beginning of God’s economy and God’s operation. God’s operation began with Christ, and it will end with Christ. Actually, in the divine economy Christ is all-inclusive. He is the First and the Last, the beginning and the ending, of God’s operation, and He is the content and continuation of whatever God is doing. Because the Greek letters from Alpha to Omega comprise all the letters of the Greek alphabet, we may say that in God’s economy Christ is every letter for the composing of words, sentences, paragraphs, chapters, and books. He is the element for composing the story of our life.
The very Lord whom we serve is the Alpha and the Omega. He is the first letter, the last letter, and all the letters in between. This means that He is able to accomplish everything in the divine economy. Christ is the all-inclusive One, the One who is the First and the Last, the beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega. Through Him we enjoy the dispensing of the Triune God.