"In Him Ye Are Made Full"

by Toms, A. F. | Category: General | Mar 1973

There is ever the danger that material prosperity may lead to spiritual poverty, unless the heart is carefully guarded. Moses foresaw this and in his parting message to the people whom he had led for forty years, he solemnly warned them, "When the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land ... great and goodly cities, which thou buildedst not, and houses full of all good things, which thou filledst not ... then beware lest thou forget the LORD" (Deut. 6:10-12). Alas, the very thing he feared happened, and when those days came they found Israel careless, "eating and drinking and making merry (1 Kings 4:20).

Into this same pitfall the Corinthians fell. "Already ye are filled, already ye are become rich, ye have reigned without us" Paul wrote (1 Cor. 4:8). But their fulness was not true spiritual fulness. They were yet carnal. They were saying, in effect, what the Laodiceans said years later, "I am rich, and have gotten riches, and have need of nothing". Poor deluded souls I The faithful and true Witness who walked in the midst of the lampstands saw them as they actually were, "wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked" (Rev. 3:17). So there is a fulness which is not of God, but denotes spiritual poverty. I went out full" said Naomi, and it was a sad confession to make, for when she was full God's people were empty, "there was a famine in the land". Years later the Lord brought her home again empty. Yes, empty! but a wiser woman, and in that condition of heart where the Lord could fill her. Her closing days were actually her full days, far the Lord became to her a restorer of life and a nourisher of her old age. She found that true fulness was in God. It always is. We shall find that, too. "In Him ye are made full".

The spoilers were busy in Colossae, introducing among the disciples the false teaching of the Gnostics, which among other things exalted angels and gave a lesser place to the Person of Christ. Against this heresy Paul wrote, and the Colossian epistle is delightful in its exaltation of Christ. Pleroma, "fulness", was a word which the false teachers used to express the sum total of the divine powers and attributes, which they maintained was distributed among angelic beings. It was a blasphemous doctrine, of course, and with one stroke of his Spirit-guided pen Paul laid it law. "Far it was the good pleasure of the Father that in Him should all the fulness dwell" (Cal. 1:19). "All the fulness". How we love those words! "For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily" (Cal. 2:9). The sum total of all that we associate with God, His powers and attributes, was continuously and permanently at home in Him. All that God is Christ is. Glorious truth! We love it dearly and hold it tenaciously. We need to, because the spoilers are busy today with their philosophy and vain deceit, which invariably begins by attacking the doctrine of the Person of Christ. That is not to be wandered at, of course, for in all things God has made Him pre-eminent. The Scriptures teach that from everlasting to everlasting He is God. The fulness of the Godhead dwelt in Him from eternity, He was ever "in the form of God", and it continued to dwell in Him during the days of His flesh, for "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Ward was God.... And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us" (John 1:1,14). And this dwells in Him still. In His glorified body, high upon heaven's throne, now and far ever dwells all the fulness of Deity. That we most firmly believe.

Out of this truth springs another, for in the same sentence the apostle continues, "And in Him ye are made full" (Col. 2:10). Not merely that we might be made full, but being in Him, we are made full. God has placed us in Christ, in whom all the fulness dwells, and by reason of our position in Him we are made full. "For of His fulness we all received, and grace for grace" (John 1:16).

The fulness we have received in Christ should have an expression in our spiritual experience. Stephen is an eminent example of its practical outworking. He was "full of faith and of the Holy Spirit", and "full of grace and power" (Acts 7:5,8). How like his Master he had become. Of His fulness he

had certainly received, and grace for grace. We marvel at the grace of God in him, grace to witness, to suffer and even to die. He was a full man, full in his life and full in his death.

This is the fulness we want, dear reader, and with nothing less must we be satisfied. In the prison at Rome Paul bowed his knees unto the Father and prayed for this very thing for the saints in Ephesus. His prayer makes plain how this fulness may be ours in practical experience day by day. We believe the doctrine of it. We love it dearly. But what of the outworking of it in our lives? We must believe for that also. "That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; to the end that ... ye may be filled unto all the fulness of God" (Eph. 3:17,19). It is no secret. It is Christ dwelling in us day by day, in answer to His glorious promise, "I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me" (Rev. 3:20). If we hear His voice and obey it in every detail we shall enjoy His abiding presence with us. There can be no tolerance of sin, of course. The old nature, with its sinful desires, must be kept in the place of death. Only then will Christ live in us. "I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live; and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me" (Gal. 2:20). There it is summed up in four words. "Christ liveth in me". If it was real in Paul's life, and Stephen's, and in the lives of many others, why should it not be also in ours?

Toms, A. F. | Mar 1973
General