John 1:16 says, “Of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace.” It is not easy to understand this verse. A teacher of the Greek language once said that grace upon grace can be compared to the waves of the sea, which roll in wave upon wave without interruption. In this verse grace does not refer to the riches of grace but to the fullness of grace. The riches of grace are in God, but the fullness of grace is in Christ Jesus. Hence, the grace that we receive is the fullness of grace. The Jews do not know the Lord Jesus, and they do not receive Him. They only have the Father but not the Son. Hence, the most that they can enjoy is the rich love of God. They cannot enjoy the fullness of the love of God as Christians can.
Now we can understand John 1:16. This verse says that we have received “of His fullness,” not “of His riches.” Fullness, not riches, is used in this verse. This can be compared to water within a cup being the riches and to the water that overflows the cup being the fullness. The Lord Jesus is the overflow of God; the Son is the overflow of the Father. Here is an illustration. Before I was married in 1928, I was a bachelor. Even though I was young and strong, I did not have an “overflow.” Today, however, my eight children, their spouses, and my third generation add up to more than thirty people. This is my overflow. The riches are seen in the father, and the fullness is seen in the children.
In God the Father love is rich, light is rich, and grace is also rich, but we cannot see the fullness of these items in the Father. When the Son came and walked on the earth, people saw the overflow, something that surpassed the riches. Based on this light, when we read the record of the Lord Jesus in the four Gospels, we need to see that His life and walk were not merely rich in life, love, and power; His life and walk were the fullness of life, love, and power. When we describe the Father, we use the word rich. God is rich in this, and He is rich in that. However, when we describe the Son, we need to change rich to full. Christ is full of this, and He is full of that. The Lord is not only rich, but He is also full. The Lord Jesus is the fullness of God, and fullness is expression. Hymns, #501 says, “O glorious Christ, Savior mine, / Thou art truly radiance divine.” When the Lord Jesus was on earth, He was full of grace, full of reality, full of light, and full of life. He was full of the attributes of God; He was full of all that God is. This is God’s manifestation, God’s expression.
We are now clear concerning the fullness of God dwelling in Christ bodily. In Christ is the fullness of God’s grace and reality, and we have all received of Christ’s fullness, and grace upon grace. This is like wave upon wave of grace coming upon us. This surely is fullness. The grace we receive from the Lord is the expression of God. Hence, the more grace we receive, the more we express God.
We have seen that Christ is God’s fullness; He is the expression of the riches of all that God is. Concerning Christ, Hebrews 1:3 says that He is the effulgence of God’s glory. Effulgence is the fullness of glory. It is the overflow of glory; therefore, effulgence is the expression of glory. God is glory. Christ is the effulgence of God’s glory; He is the fullness of God and the expression of God.
The believers are redeemed for the fullness of God. By redemption the believers are brought back to the position of humanity at creation. The original position of man at creation was to be a vessel to contain and express God. After man fell, he lost this position, but in His death on the cross the Lord Jesus accomplished redemption to bring man back to his original position.
The believers are also redeemed to become the children of God who possess the divine life and the divine nature in order to express God and become the fullness of God (John 1:12-13; 2 Pet. 1:4; Eph. 3:19). Eventually, not only is Christ God’s fullness, but all those who belong to Christ will also be God’s fullness. Two thousand years ago there was only one man, Jesus in the land of Judea, who was God’s fullness to express God. Today, however, there are countless expressions of God on the earth. Even though our expression falls short, we at least bear some resemblance. We are redeemed, we have believed into the Lord, we are born of God, and we are children of God. We have God’s life and nature. The divine life and nature within us will continue to increase until they become the fullness, and we are “filled unto all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:19).
Many of the young brothers live together in the brothers’ houses. When you sit together around the table after dinner, you should exercise to see how much you express God. As brothers, you should not be political or hypocritical when you speak to one another. Rather, you should consider how much God is expressed among you. You should also consider which aspects of God are expressed, whether it is grace, love, light, or life. You need to express God, and you should remind one another to express God.
There are brothers’ houses and sisters’ houses in the United States and in Taiwan. In the past, most of the testimonies we heard from these brothers and sisters were about washing dishes. If the saints who live in the brothers’ houses can overcome in the matter of washing dishes, they will have the fullness of God. They can overcome by calling on the Lord while they wash dishes. The Lord Jesus is the fullness of God, and the believers who are redeemed by God have the overflowing God within them. In God the divine life is rich; when this life enters into us, it becomes the fullness. When we receive and enjoy the divine nature that overflows from God, we become the fullness of God and His expression.
May the work of the Spirit of the Lord touch us all and enable us to see that being a Christian is not a matter of ethical cultivation or self-improvement; rather, it is a matter of being filled unto all the fullness of God. We need to be filled with the riches of God’s life, love, holiness, grace, and power. When we are filled with the riches of what God is, we will become God’s fullness and spontaneously express Him. As a result, we will be those who enjoy and express God. This is what it means to be a genuine believer; this is the genuine Christian life.