Since the Body is the fullness of Christ as the One who fills all in all, we, the members of the Body, need to arrive at “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13). Christ has a fullness, the fullness has a stature, and the stature has a measure. We must arrive at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. This is our goal, and we must diligently press toward it until we all reach it together.
The fullness of Christ is simply the expression of Christ. As Christ’s fullness, the Body is Christ’s expression. Christ’s fullness, the Body, has a stature, and with this stature there is a certain measure. To arrive at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ is to arrive at the full building up of the Body of Christ. It is to arrive at the full completion of the building up of the Body.
To be the fullness of Christ, who fills all in all, is to “be filled unto all the fullness of God.” If we get into the depths of Ephesians 3:19, we shall see that the fullness of God is the church. The highest definition of the church is that the church is the fullness of God. In verse 21 Paul says, “To Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus.” According to the context, the church in verse 21 is the fullness of God in verse 19. When in our experience we are filled unto all the fullness of God, the church comes into being in a practical way. It is at such a time that Paul says, “To Him be the glory in the church.” This glory is the expression of God. Hence, in the fullness of God there is the expression of God. The fullness of God is the church as God’s expression.
Some translations of verse 19 say, “filled with all the fullness of God.” According to this rendering, the fullness of God would have to be the element, the essence, with which we are filled. But this is a mistaken understanding of this verse. Here Paul is saying that we shall be filled unto all the fullness of God, that is, we shall be filled to be the expression of God.
Chapter three of Ephesians is concerned with the constitution of the church. The church is metabolically constituted in us through our experience and enjoyment of the riches of Christ. In order for the church to be constituted in a practical way, we need to be strengthened into our inner man. Then Christ must make His home in our hearts, occupying all the parts of our inner being and saturating them with His riches. Then we need to be rooted and grounded in love, rooted for growth and grounded for building. Following this, we must grasp the dimensions of Christ, experiencing Christ in His universal dimensions both horizontally and vertically. Along with this, we come to know in our experience the knowledge-surpassing love of Christ. As a result of all these experiences, we are eventually filled unto all the fullness of God. Therefore, being filled unto the fullness of God is the outcome of the deeper, higher, and richer experiences of Christ described in Ephesians 3.
In the New Testament the fullness is the expression through the completeness of the riches. This is the reason that in 3:8 Paul speaks of the unsearchable riches of Christ and then in 1:23 and 4:13, of the fullness of Christ. As we enjoy the riches of Christ, these riches are assimilated into our being metabolically. Then they constitute us into the fullness of Christ, into the Body of Christ, as His expression. Therefore, the fullness of Christ in 1:23 is the very fullness of God in 3:19. The fullness of God is the issue of the believers’ being constituted metabolically through their experience and enjoyment of the riches of Christ.
We need to be impressed with the fact that the fullness of God is the expression of God. According to John 1:16, the fullness of God came with Christ, who is the embodiment of God’s fullness (Col. 2:9; 1:19). With Christ the expression was an individual matter. This expression, therefore, needed to be enlarged, to be expanded, from an individual matter to a corporate matter. The church as the Body of Christ today is to be the fullness of God in a corporate way. In the church the Triune God is not expressed through an individual; He is expressed corporately through the Body, through the believers who have been filled to the brim with the riches of Christ. In this way, the fullness of God is embodied in the church. Therefore, the church, the Body of Christ, the embodiment of the fullness of God, is the expression of the Triune God.
Home | First | Prev | Next