THE FULNESS OF THE GODHEAD
THE FULNESS OF THE GODHEAD
One has been impressed (luring the afternoon with the word we get in this epistle, that there is a sphere where there is neither Greek nor Jew, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but where Christ is everything and in all. That land must indeed be as the scripture says, “a land that is very far off” from this world. “Thine eyes shall see the king in his beauty: they shall behold the land that is very far off” (Isaiah 33: 17), meaning that the moral distance is great between this world and the land where Christ is everything; it is far off. It is manifest that Christ is not everything in this world; when He was in the world, the princes of this world crucified the Lord of glory. “He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not” (John 1: 10). So that He was cast out as worthless by men, “the stone which the builders rejected”; there is no place for Him in the structure of this world, the builders rejected that Stone. So that there is one name that always seems out of place in this world, the name of Jesus. That name is always out of place; you can mention any other name, that of the wickedest man that lives today, or has ever lived, and it does not disturb the atmosphere, but the name of Jesus does not fit anywhere in this world.
But there is a land, as we have said, where He is everything and in all, and I desire just to say a few words as to the greatness of that blessed Person who is great enough to be everything and in all. It says He has gone up into heaven “that he might fill all things” (Ephesians 4: 10). That is the purpose of God, that He might fill everything in heaven and on earth. No human lips, or heart, or mind, could speak of such a One but for the presence of the Holy Ghost. The Lord Jesus said, “When He, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth ... He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you” (John 16: 13, 14). And the confidence that one has in seeking to speak at all is that the Spirit of God is here to bring before our hearts the greatness and glory of Christ.
So when we come to the scripture, what I have to say is just wrapped up in one verse, “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” There is no greater expression in scripture. There are no words that can convey the profound and wondrous meaning of such a scripture, “In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” Our tiny minds and thoughts are lost as we think of the Godhead. What thoughts, dear brethren, surround the Word, the name, the Godhead. The Apostle Paul said to some of his hearers that “We ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device.” (Acts 17: 29.) All the art of man, every device that the human mind can conceive, cannot express what the Godhead is like; it is beyond the compass of the mind of man. The witness to it is seen in the things which are made. It says the things which are seen bear witness to “his eternal power and Godhead” (Romans 1: 20.) So that the whole universe tells us something of the omnipotence of God, of the Godhead, His omnipotence, His unlimited and eternal power. That is one great thought connected with the Godhead, Omnipotence: the power that knows no bounds and no limits.
But then God is omniscient. His eyes are in every place, beholding the evil and the good (Proverbs 15: 3). What human mind can compass omniscience? But God sees everything, everywhere. That is one thought of the Godhead. “The eyes of the Lord are in every place.” Every eye that has ever been created is a little expression of the omniscience of God. “He that formed the eye, shall he not see?” (Psalm 94: 9.)
Then God is omnipresent. He is everywhere. “Do not I fill heaven and earth?” (Jeremiah 23: 24). David understood that; he said, “If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there ... if I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.” (Psalm 139: 8 - 10). Then God, dear brethren, is love; love in its totality has its origin in God. This, and many other thoughts surround the Godhead, but the passage we have read says “all the fulness of the Godhead” — all of it. What a wondrous statement! All of it. Everything that marks the Godhead, power, light, love, wisdom, patience, faithfulness, grace, every single thing that is proper to the Godhead, all the fulness of it, not in measure; the fulness is in contrast to the thought of measure. All the fulness, the whole entirety of what is proper to the Godhead, it says, dwells in Him bodily.
Now, I would like us to get a sense of what that word “bodily” means. You see, God is a Spirit, “Dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see to whom be honour and power everlasting.” (1 Timothy 6: 16). Scripture does speak of the form of God, but no creature has ever seen it or shall ever see it. Angels do not see it. The Seraphim, though they stand in the presence of God, have six wings; “with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly” (Isaiah 6: 2), meaning they did not see the Person, the form, of God, not even the holy angels. But bodily means that a vessel has come into view where all that God is can be seen; the most wondrous thought in scripture that a vessel has come into view great enough to contain all the fulness of the Godhead, for it is there. It says, “bodily,” meaning that in that blessed Person, the Lord Jesus Christ as man, the fulness of the Godhead dwells. So that we can take account of it as creatures, and angels can; for “God was manifest in the flesh ... seen of angels” (1 Timothy 3: 16), that we, men and women, can feast our eyes, the eyes of our hearts, upon a blessed Vessel that contains the fulness of the Godhead; and it says it dwells there, it does not sojourn there; it is not a temporary thought, it is an eternal thought. It came into view in the entrance of Jesus into this world in the body that was prepared for Him, He took a form; He was in the form of God, which no creature knows about, but it says in the New Translation He took a bondman’s form, “and was made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man.” (Philippians 2: 7, 8.) There you have a Vessel, but that Vessel is so infinitely great that all the fulness of the Godhead dwells there. When Jesus passed through this world, there passed through it a Vessel that contained all the fulness. It is there now, the same blessed Person, for it says, the glory of God shines in the face of Jesus. (2 Corinthians 4: 6.) The blessed Lord Jesus whom we know and love will be man throughout the eternal day. “Then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.” (1 Corinthians 15: 28). How God is all in all through eternity is that the Lord Jesus Christ remains man, and as man He is the Vessel in which what God is finds expression for the hearts of all to feast upon, for all to drink from.
Now that is the thought running through scripture, of Him being the Fountain. I do not know that there is anything more blessed than the thought of the Fountain. There are rivers, there are brooks in scripture, but the Fountain is the source from whence everything comes; and one of the last words of the Lord to us is, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.” (Revelation 21: 6). You can understand, in the light of what we have been saying, that He must be the Fountain of everything that the soul needs. Everything for every heart, everything for the whole church, everything for all men must find its source in Him; He is the Fountain from whence everything comes that is good. Men today, as the word says, spend their strength for nought. They are hewing out those broken cisterns which hold no water, and are forsaking the Fountain of living waters. In turning away from Christ,
Christendom turns away from the Fountain and there is no other. Every other cistern is broken and holds no water at all according to God, but the Fountain from whence everything that is good comes is the Lord Jesus Christ, and it must be so when we remember that all that God is, in every single feature of it, dwells in Him bodily.
Now, one’s thoughts turn to the first chapter of John’s gospel in order that we might take account a little of the Lord Jesus as the Vessel, the great and blessed Vessel in which what God is resides. And so it says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” And it tells us that “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” (John 1: 1, 14). There is the thought of “bodily.” “The Word became flesh” — a Vessel appears — “and dwelt among us.” And John says, “Of his fulness have all we received.” (verse 16). As he thinks of it, he thinks of every saint, every Christian that has ever lived, drinking out of His fulness. “Of his fulness have all we received.”
Now, in describing, as he does in the first and second chapters, some of the fulness that was there, he touches upon this, “In him was life.” That is one great feature of the fulness of the Godhead. God is the living God, the living and true God. “He is not a God of the dead, but of the living.” (Luke 20: 38). One great feature of the Godhead is life, and so when John speaks of the Lord Jesus becoming man, he says, “In him was life.” That is, life as an essential principle resided there. It does not reside in you and me like that; by the power of God we have been made living souls. The breath of God has given us life, but life as a principle does not dwell in us; we have been made living souls, but life is eternally in Jesus. “In him was life.” So that if anybody wants life, the Vessel of life is available to men. He is the Vessel in which life is. That was the point at the grave of Lazarus. The One in whom life is came down to that grave, and necessarily death had to give place if you have the One in whom life is. So it says, “He has given to the Son to have life in himself.” (John 5: 26). No one ever gets life for their souls except from Christ. He is a life-giving Spirit. “The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam a life-giving Spirit.” He can say to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life.” (John 11: 25.) He came down as the life, and death vanished, although Lazarus had been dead four days.
So when Peter and John came to the sepulchre the great stone had been rolled away and the angel sat on it; and the garments of death were folded up and laid aside, the napkin that was about His head in a place by itself. The One in whom life is had been into death, and death fled; as the word said, “What ailed thee, O thou sea, that thou fleddest? thou Jordan, that thou wast driven back?” (Psalm 114: 5).
Then the Apostle John moves on. “The life was the light of men.” (John 1: 4). “And the light” — the light! Now we have the Vessel of light; first the Vessel of life. Wonderful thought! None of the scientific men on the earth are vessels of life; but Jesus is the One in whom life is, and the life Giver. Then we have the Vessel of light. It says, “The light shineth in darkness.” Another great thought of God’s fulness is God is light. “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” (1 John 1: 5).
Darkness never enters where God is. He dwells, it says, “in unapproachable light.” (1 Timothy 6: 16 New Trans.). But when Jesus appeared in this world the Vessel in whom the light was appeared, and the light shone in the darkness; as it says, “The people which sat in darkness saw a great light.” (Matthew 4: 16.) The great luminary shone in the Person of Jesus. That was what blind Bartimaeus needed. The great luminary that brings light to men’s souls was passing by, and the result was he saw, and the light came into his soul; the light shone in the darkness. If souls want light from God there is the Vessel of light come within view of our souls in Jesus. There is no light anywhere else. The light that Christendom had is rapidly becoming darkness, and scripture says, “How great is that darkness.” And the kingdom of the beast is full of darkness; but the Vessel of light is Jesus.
Then John goes on, “We beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” The glory of an only One with a Father. What does that mean? As it says further on, “The only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father.” It means this, dear brethren, that what dwelt in that wonderful Vessel is the fulness of love. Life, light, love, dwell in the blessed Vessel that John speaks of that became flesh and dwelt among us. So the Apostle Paul says, I am persuaded that nothing can “separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8: 38, 39). The boundless heart of the blessed God is there; it is “in Christ Jesus our Lord.” That is where the love is; it is where the life and the light are, but it is where the love is. The love in its totality dwells in the Person of Jesus. How John loved to speak of that. All through the gospel he says of himself, “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” That is, he had been to the fountain of love; he had been to the Vessel in which the heart of God dwelt. As we have observed, one would like the sweetness of it to come to each heart here. It says, “Jesus loved Martha.” Oh, if the blessedness of that could get hold of each Christian in this room, that in the Person of Jesus the Fountain of love is open to me! “Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus.” (John 11: 5). Each one of them had come with their tiny vessel and dipped into the fountain of love. Every Christian has done that to some extent. A beloved brother has said in one of his poems, “My thimble of need will ne’er drain the ocean.” He had the Fountain before him, and whatever our need, life, light or love, our thimbles can all come and never drain the ocean. John says, “Of his fulness have all we received.” It never dries up.
Then John goes on: “We beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace”; the Vessel of divine grace. Another attribute of God, another feature of the fulness is grace; “the God of all grace.” (1 Peter 5: 10). Grace is one of God’s great features, part of His blessed name. God said to Moses, I will tell you My name: “The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious.” (Exodus 34: 6). That is part of His name; and so the Apostle Peter says, “The God of all grace.” All that grace is deposited in Jesus, full of it. Luke’s gospel is the development of that; John just touches it; he says it is there, and Luke takes it up and unfolds it in all its magnitude until you find at the end of the gospel a man who had been in this world a cumberer of the ground, a thorn and a briar, cumbering the ground, no title to be here, and the discovers at the cross the Vessel of divine grace. One in whom the grace of God dwells eternally; and he appeals to it. He brought his tiny vessel, his thimble, and it did not drain the ocean. He says, “Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.” (Luke 23: 42.) “When thy kingdom is set up, remember me.” But the grace arises in all its blessed fulness, and the Lord says to him, “‘Though you have been a cumberer of the ground, worthy to be removed, I will plant you in the paradise of God. In virtue of what I am, you will be a plant in God’s paradise for ever.” It was the Vessel of divine grace that spoke.
The Apostle Paul found the Lord Jesus in that way. He loved to speak of it; he himself, as he found out afterwards, a blasphemer and a persecutor; an insolent, overbearing man, chief of sinners; but he looks up and says, “I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry.” (1 Timothy 1: 12.) “And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant.” (verse 14). The grace that filled that blessed Vessel overflowed. “Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.” (Romans 5: 20). And it overflowed right down into the heart of Saul, and he drank of that grace. That is what is opened to us, all the grace of heaven has come into one blessed Vessel, and it is within your reach.
So John says, “Full of grace and truth” — another part of the fulness. When we think of God,
what do we think about Him? That He cannot lie. God cannot lie. There is not much that God cannot do, but that is one thing. He cannot lie. God is true, says the word, “the only true God.” But all the truth, all that is true, finds its eternal deposit in the Person of Jesus. If you want to know what is true you will only find it in the Vessel of truth, this blessed Vessel! It says, “Full of grace and truth”: “the truth as it is in Jesus.” That is where the truth is. Never mind what philosophy and vain deceit and the rudiments of this world talk about; the Vessel of truth is the Person of Jesus. “The truth as it is in Jesus.” The truth about God; the truth about man; the truth about the past; the truth about the present; the truth about the future; the truth about you; the truth about every one resides in the Person of Jesus. The truth is there for you and me to dip out of, in a world where a liar is active. “He is a liar, and the father of it,” says the Lord. (John 8: 44). The blessed Vessel of truth comes into this scene, “full of grace and truth.”
And so John pursues his thought into the second day and says, “I knew him not.” What a wonderful expression! The world knew Him not. “He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.” And he says, “I knew him not,” and “Ye know not.” “There standeth one among you whom ye know not.” He had come down in such a guise, in the form of a Servant, that even John “knew him not: but he that sent me to baptise with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptiseth with the Holy Ghost. And I saw, and bare record, that this is the Son of God.” That is the Vessel of the Holy Ghost. “Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining.” “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him.” The Vessel of God’s Holy Spirit is the Person of Jesus. The dove that had gone out from the ark of Noah and never found a place to rest, going through this death-stricken scene and finding no rest for the sole of its foot, was sent out again and plucked off an olive leaf and brought it back to the ark, gathering up in that way every bit of spiritual life that existed at the moment. Noah sent it out again, and then we do not hear any more; but the continuation of the story is, John says, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him.”
And so the Lord Jesus as man has the Spirit of God without measure. When the Spirit of God came here to dwell in the church no one received that Spirit in its totality. He came as a mighty rushing wind. Nobody can gather up the wind; indicating the difference between the coming of the Spirit as upon us, the church, and coming upon Jesus in a bodily form. It came in its entirety and abode there, because everything was entirely suitable for the Spirit to remain there. The difference between the Spirit as fire and as a dove is wonderful. When the Holy Spirit came on believers at Pentecost, it says He came as cloven tongues of fire, meaning that in ourselves there needed to be the judgment of evil; but when it came upon Jesus, it says He came as a dove; meaning that everything is restful and complacent for the Spirit to abide there. So that if any one wants the Spirit of God, the Lord says, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me.” (John 7: 37). That is where the Spirit is available. “Speak to the rock,” the Lord said to Moses, and the waters flowed. It is consequent on the smiting. That is where the Spirit is available: in Jesus. The apostle says, “I want a supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ,” and the deposit is in this wonderful Vessel in all its fulness.
Now, there is one more word I want to mention. God says, “I have laid help upon one that is mighty.” (Psalm 89: 19.) Another great feature of God is that He is our Helper. The saint says, “Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.” (1 Samuel 7: 12). Help is one of God’s great features, that He is prepared to help men, and it says, “I have laid help upon one that is mighty.” That is, the help that every man, woman, and child, every believer wants is laid, it is put there, in the Vessel of divine help for men. An outcast woman, a dog in her public position, discovered that. She kneeled down and said, “Lord, help me.” (Matthew 15: 25; Mark 7: 25.) There is always an answer to that. Help is there, laid by God on One that is mighty. Paul had access to that Vessel of help. “Having therefore obtained help of God, I continue unto this day.” (Acts 26: 22). What a wonderful Vessel! There is much more. Who can speak of all the fulness of the Godhead? But I suggest these things that we should get a glimpse in our souls of the greatness of the Vessel — “bodily” — the fulness abides there.
Now there is another work going on at the present moment. It says that Solomon, the man of glory, the man of wisdom, the man of power, cast in the clay ground in the plains of Jordan vessels of bright brass for the temple of God. (2 Chronicles 4: 16, 17). You see, what is coming is this: after this great and blessed Vessel has been introduced that I have been speaking about, there is another vessel. John speaking of it says, I saw “the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of the heaven from God, having the glory of God.” (Revelation 21: 10, 11 New Trans.). Another most wonderful thing! a vessel now in view that has the glory of God; and it is not Christ personally this time, but it is the holy city, and it has the glory of God.
What God is shines out of that wonderful city. How is that made up? It is made up of all those vessels of bright brass that Solomon cast in the clay ground being brought together. Solomon is Christ in heaven, in glory, using His power and wisdom in our earthly circumstances. They form the clay ground, the mould, that which is capable of receiving the glory; as the Apostle Paul says, “vessels of glory”; “vessels of mercy ... prepared unto glory.” (Romans 9: 23). That is how the city is built: by all these vessels that have been the subject of Christ in His blessed power and wisdom, using the earthly circumstances through which we pass as a mould to form vessels of bright brass. That means what is contrary to God must be refused. The Lord is using our earthly circumstances and the things we have to face and pass through in the clay ground on the plains of Jordan, where death may come in at any minute, to be a means to form by His wonderful skill a vessel which will refuse that which is not of God., and which will contain His glory.
Now the holy city is the gathering up of that.
One loves to think of it, all the vessels that will come up; they were without number which Solomon cast. Some of them are small, as it says, vessels of cups; others are larger, vessels of flagons; but they are all coming up; they are all going to have their place in the holy city. Peter is a vessel there that has been formed; John that leaned on Jesus’ bosom; Bartholomew, Thaddaeus, Paul, Stephen — you can see the glory shining out from the very clay ground which he is in. The glory of God shone out through the human vessel, that mould, even before he was taken home, and all the people of God in whom there has been a work of God’s blessed Spirit, small and great, gathered together in a vessel which has the glory of God.
Now your part and mine in that wonderful scene will depend on our maintaining access to this great and blessed Vessel. If we turn away to philosophy and the thoughts of men, and the traditions of this world, we close up for ourselves the access to the Vessel in whom all the fulness of the Godhead dwelleth bodily. “And ye are complete in him.” That is, you do not want anything else. The thought of being complete is that there is no need for anything else. As our little vessels are filled from that wonderful Fountain, our measure to contribute to that glorious city is being formed.
I have sought to present a little bit of the greatness of the One who fills all in the land of God’s purpose, so that we might hasten towards that blessed goal. “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.” (Colossians 3: 1). The earth or the wilderness is not the goal, but where Christ is. “Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.” Our affections find an object in the One in whom the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily.