As God the Father’s beloved Son, Christ is the embodiment and expression of the Triune God. “In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Col. 2:9). The words the fullness of the Godhead refer to the entire Godhead, to the complete God, including the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Because the Godhead comprises the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, it would not be correct to say that the fullness of the Godhead includes only God the Son and not also God the Father and God the Spirit. Since the Godhead comprises the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, the fullness of the Godhead must be the fullness of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Therefore, as the One in whom the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily, Christ is the embodiment of the Triune God.
The Son is God Himself expressed (Heb. 1:8). God the Father is hidden; God the Son is expressed. No one has ever seen God; the Son, as the Word of God (John 1:1; Rev. 19:13) and the speaking of God (Heb. 1:1-2), has declared Him in a full expression, explanation, and definition (John 1:18).
In His human living and in His work, Christ the Son expressed the Father (John 14:9). The Son came in the Father’s name (5:43), worked in the Father’s name (10:25), did the Father’s will (6:38), spoke the Father’s word (3:34a; 14:24; 7:16-17; 12:47-50), and sought the Father’s glory (7:18). He was one with the Father (10:30). He had no work, no will, no word, no glory, and no ambition for Himself. As such a one, Christ expressed only the Father. He did not express Himself. He was the Son, yet He expressed the Father.
Whenever we speak of the Son of God, we are immediately involved with the Father and the Spirit. According to the writings of Paul, to have the Son is to have both the Father and the Spirit. The Son is the embodiment and expression of the Triune God realized as the Spirit for our experience and enjoyment. Through incarnation, the Son of God became a man who was the last Adam, who through death and resurrection has become the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor.15:45b). “The Lord is the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:17). Therefore, the Son of God, the embodiment and expression of the Triune God, became a man and in resurrection this One is now the life-giving Spirit.
As God the Father’s beloved Son, Christ is the embodiment and expression of the Triune God for us to participate in the fullness of the Godhead to become God’s expression. John 1:16 says, “Of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace.” This indicates that in the beloved Son we participate in the fullness of the Godhead. This fullness is unlimited. The more we experience and enjoy this fullness, the more we realize that it is unlimited. As we participate in the fullness of the Godhead, we become the fullness of the Triune God, which is the expression of the processed Triune God.
Paul refers to this in Ephesians 3:19, where he speaks of the believers being “filled unto all the fullness of God.” 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 today is to be the fullness, the expression, of the Triune God in a corporate way. In the church the Triune God is not expressed through an individual; He is expressed corporately through the Body. As we participate in the fullness of the Godhead embodied in the Son, we become the corporate fullness, the corporate expression, of the Triune God.
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