“For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell” (Colossians 1:19 NKJV).
Great controversies had trailed and are still trailing our Lord’s claim to divinity. Jesus Christ as God is mind-boggling to so many who would rather have Him as a great founder of a religion in the categories of Gautama Buddha, Mohammed, Confucius, and Krishna among many others. There are others who would be glad to consider Christ merely as the best specie of human beings to have ever lived and a great moral teacher, but would hesitate to call Him God. Hardly is there anything about Him that unnerves unbelievers more than to hear or see Jesus revered as God. While He lived here on earth, our Lord evoked the ire of the Jewish leaders at any inkling that He might be laying claim to divinity. Consequently, when He referred to God as Father, at the heels of healing a sick person on the Sabbath, He made a full circle in provoking the wrath of the religious leaders of His day. “Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God” (John 5:18 NKJV). However, our Lord, knowing Himself as He did, was resolute in His self-definition, “I and My Father are one” (John 10:30 NKJV). His divinity is the defining essence that sets Him apart from all other beings. He is not merely a good or even a perfect man, not merely a great moral teacher, not merely a powerful healer and miracle worker, and not merely a great prophet of God. He is the One in whom the fullness of God dwells in bodily form! Paul decisively argued that Christ could not be ranked with the founders of world religions, nor be fitted into any other category the world would want to place Him. Paul was persuaded that Christ can only be God!
Jesus is God, fullness of God dwells in Him, not just a prophet. Church is His body, complete in Him, with God’s fullness in Christ, supreme and mind-blowing.
When Paul declared that “it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell” he meant that the Father is satisfied to the uttermost to see in Christ the consummation of God. In other words, God is happy and fully satisfied to limit every manifestation of Himself in the Person of Christ. This could further mean that God does not express Himself outside of Himself except in Christ. Anything that is not found in Christ is not part of God. Christ is the fullness, that is, the completeness and exhaustion of God. To say that the fullness of God lives in Christ means that the totality of God’s nature and attributes are resident in Christ and in none else apart from Him. The majesty, the power and goodness of God are only as they are manifested in Christ. This fullness of God that is said to live in Christ is for all eternity. It was with Christ prior to His incarnation and will be retained in Him throughout all ages. Everything He is today, He has always been and will ever be forever and ever. It is the Lord’s doing and the Bible asserts: “I know that whatever God does, it shall be forever. Nothing can be added to it, And nothing taken from it. God does it, that men should fear before Him” (Ecclesiastes 3:14 NKJV). If it pleased the Father that in Christ all fullness should dwell, it still pleases Him today and will ever please Him. These thoughts are only but thrilling. If this is exciting to you, then you need to hear this before you run off.
And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all” (Ephesians 1:22-13 NKJV). Since it pleased the Father for the fullness of deity to dwell permanently in Christ, it is not difficult to understand how He unquestionably put everything under His feet. As long as the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily in Christ, everything will be subject to His authority and be subservient to His will. The Father did not only put all things under the feet of Christ, but He also “gave Him to be head over all things to the church.” In other words, Christ is all of the things the Father has made Him for the ultimate benefit of the church –“which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.” This is mind blowing! The church, which is the Body of Christ, is “the fullness of Him {Christ} who fills all in all.” Reason with me here: Christ is the fullness of the Godhead, and the church is the fullness of Christ. Paul surmises thus, “For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power” (Colossians 2:9-10 NKJV). We are complete in Him because we have the fullness of Him in whom the fullness of the Godhead dwells in bodily form. This is an eternal arrangement that is non-negotiable for all who are saved by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone. Give Him praise, in Jesus name.
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