I would like to add a brief explanation concerning riches and fullness. The words riches and fullness do not refer to an object. Rather, these two nouns describe two different degrees of development. If we use the love of God as an example, the riches of God’s love are in the Father, and the fullness is in the Son. Based on this word, we must see that the love of God is the object and that riches and fullness are used to describe the degree of the development of God’s love. Riches refers to the initial development, and fullness refers to a further degree of development. Thus, in the Father, God’s love is in the degree of riches, and in the Son, God’s love develops from the degree of riches to the degree of fullness.
We must also touch a fundamental truth concerning the Divine Trinity. Our God is one, but He is also three—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. This mystery has been preached for two thousand years. Bible expositors, teachers, and translators, as well as those who read the Bible have studied this subject extensively. I myself have spent over fifty years studying this matter, and now I can say in brief that the Father is the source, the Son is the course, the flowing out, and the Spirit is the flowing in. The Father is the source, what flows out from the Father is the Son, and what flows into us is the Spirit. This is a matter of development and can be compared to water flowing from an underground source. There is water at the source, there is water in the waterway, and when the water flows into a well, there is also water in the well. These are not three different kinds of water; there is only one kind of water.
In the previous chapter we did not say that God has three kinds of love, with one kind being in the Father, another in the Son, and still another in the Spirit. Instead, we said that God has only one kind of love. In the Father this love is the riches. When this love flows out in the Son, it is the fullness, and when it flows into us as the Spirit, it is bountiful. Hence, Philippians 1:19 speaks of “the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.” When God’s attributes are in the Father, they are the riches, and when they are expressed in the Son, they are the fullness. As a result of what the Son accomplished, the riches flowing in the Spirit are applicable to us. As soon as we apply them, they become our bountiful supply.
The subject of this chapter is the church as the fullness of Christ. The word fullness is used three times in the book of Ephesians. The first time is in 1:22-23, where it says, “The church, which is His Body, the fullness of the One who fills all in all.” The second time is in 3:19, which says, “That you may be filled unto all the fullness of God,” and the third time is in 4:13, which says, “Until we all arrive...at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” If my head is big, but my body is small, thin, and weak, then my body is not my fullness. But I thank the Lord that He gave me a body that is somewhat full. My body is my expression, my fullness.
One day God gained the fullness of His expression in the universe in the person of Jesus Christ. Even though God existed in the universe, before Christ came into the world, man could not see God’s fullness. Then one day God was incarnated to be the man Jesus Christ. He lived on the earth as a perfect man, and He was the complete God. He was manifested in the land of Judea as the fullness of God. However, the fullness could not be limited to the Lord or to Judea. Therefore, in the Gospel of John the Lord said, “Unless the grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (12:24). The Lord likened Himself to a grain of wheat that remains as a single grain unless it dies. The Lord had to die in order to multiply; He died for the producing of His fullness.
The Lord Jesus gained His multiplication by passing through death and entering into resurrection, just like a grain of wheat that is sown into the ground dies and then grows out of the ground to bear many grains. The many grains are the multiplication of the one grain. They are the fullness, the expression of the one grain. In other words, the many grains are the thousands of believers who have believed into the Lord over the past two thousand years, including you and me. We are the multiplication of Christ. We are also the fullness of Christ, just as Christ is the fullness of God.
When the Lord Jesus was on earth, some people went to the disciples because they wanted to see Jesus. If some people in Taiwan say that they want to see Jesus, where can we take them? We should not merely take them to the church. In addition, we should learn to say, “My friend, do you want to see Jesus? I have been with you for so long, and you still do not know that I am in Jesus, and Jesus is in me. When you see me, you see Jesus.”
When we were in Chefoo, there was a brother who worked at the telegraph office. He did not hold a high position, but when he contacted his colleagues, he gave them a good impression. As a result, his colleagues called him Jesus. It would be wonderful if the young people could contact their fellow students and their professors in such a way that they would be called Jesus. The kind of impression we give people depends on our appearance, our expression. During my initial time in the United States, because of the burden that the Lord gave me and the doors that He opened, I traveled from the East Coast to the West Coast and from the north to the south. During this time I was given hospitality in the home of an American who told me that I was neither like a Chinese nor like an American, but he could not say who I was like. Our expression gives people a certain impression.