FULNESS
FULNESS
Isaiah 24: 1-12; Colossians 2: 8-10; Ephesians 1:7-10, Ephesians 1:15-23
I have no doubt, beloved brethren, that most of us have in some way become conscious that God is beginning to overturn things here, with a view to emptying them — with a view to emptying this world. It would appear from scripture that God always does that when a moral necessity for it arises. To go back to Genesis 1: 2, it says the earth was waste and empty; though of course it is apparent, and indeed scripture declares, that God did not make it empty; He neither made it waste nor empty. It says, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” and we are told that He did not make it empty. You cannot think of God making an empty earth. But something transpired which God has not seen fit to disclose to us that made it necessary to empty the earth, so that there came a moment when there was nothing here that was living — not a blade of grass, not a plant, not an animal, not a responsible creature — whatever may have been here before, which is not disclosed to us; but because of some moral ruin, which no doubt originated from the devil,
something transpired, and God turned it upside down and emptied it. That is no doubt why there is buried in the bowels of the earth evidences to this day of animal and vegetable life often different to anything existing today. I do not dwell on the physical side, except to point out that when God empties anything, something has happened to call for it. It says of the flood in the days of Noah, “The windows of the heavens were opened, and the foundations of the great deep were broken up”; behind the physical overthrow there was the moral condition — that called for it. Then God emptied the earth, except for a few — even eight souls were saved — by water. Again you have the same thing in Sodom and Gomorrah; God emptied those cities; God turned them into ashes; condemned them with an overthrow, not because of a physical accident; no, never. God never acts like that; but in His all-power and all-wisdom He disturbs, the physical, owing to a moral necessity. So, with these cities, there was a moral state that called for “fire and brimstone,” which is proved by God coming down. He says, “I have come down to see.” Such is God. He came down to see if the cities could be spared; but when it was manifest that those cities could not continue, then there was a physical overthrow. They were turned into ashes. God has been pleased to disclose this to us. I have not the shadow of doubt it lies behind all that God does. If you were to visit cities that God has overthrown by physical disturbance, and knew the inward history of those cities, you would find there was a moral necessity for the emptying. Men may say there was an eruption from Vesuvius that caused the overthrow of Pompeii. So there was; but the physical emptying corresponds with the moral necessity. I think that explains to us where we are today. God is beginning to empty man’s world because of the moral state of things — the abandonment of divine light and divine principles and divine limitations. God is beginning to empty the earth. We have not by any means reached the fulness of this. I have not a doubt God is beginning what we read about in Isaiah 24, God empties the earth and turns it upside down, and in doing it He will see, as it says, that no one escapes that belongs to it. It is remarkable that it says, “As with the people, so with the priest; as with the servant, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the taker of usury, so with the giver of usury to him.” “As with the people, so with the priest” — the religious leaders will not miss what God does. Those who take the place of priests in what is professedly of God — “As with the people, so with the priest.” Then it comes down the whole avenue of human life; it touches all the great features of man’s life here until, as the New Translation puts it in verse 12, the scene is a ruin. What is left when God overturns it is a ruin. That is what happened in Egypt. There was a moment when the time drew near for God to take His people out of Egypt; following their hatred, wickedness, and slavery of His people. God began to empty Egypt in various ways, until through the hail practically every green thing was smitten, and then followed the locusts that took off what was left; and the people of Egypt come to Pharaoh and say, “Don’t you know that Egypt is ruined? Let these people go.” That is what we have — the approaching ruin or emptying of man’s world. The Lord no doubt used these plagues to make Israel more ready to go. You can understand as they went out of the ruin how thankful their hearts would be to leave it behind, to move towards the land that flowed with milk and honey. Every true heart would appreciate the moving out of such a world.
I have no doubt the Lord is allowing us — and if we are left here much longer, we shall taste much more of it — to feel the emptying. You feel it in the religious world; how empty it is becoming! There was something once which we would not speak lightly of, but “as with the people, so with the priest.” God is touching everything, and we feel it; He intends us to feel it in view of taking us out of it, to realise that He is emptying what is already morally empty.
One desires not to speak about that so much, but to call attention to where the fulness is. You see, if we are going to taste much of the emptying before the Lord comes, God does not leave us without resource; and so one loves the expression in Romans 15, verse 4: “That we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope” — that as the emptying process goes on. God would bring us into touch with the fulness — the fulness of which there is no limit. It was my desire to say a few words as to fulness.
It is a wonderful expression. You get it in relation to many things. You have this expression in the Psalms: “The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof.” The earth is not the fulness; they are distinct. But what the fulness of the earth discloses is the wonderful resources of the earth. Think, dear brethren, of what comes out of the earth. Men may assume, in their pride, to despise the earth and agriculture, but even the king himself lives of the field. The king would die but for the field; so would everybody. Think of what a wonderful sphere the earth is, in distinction from the sea! Think of what comes out of the ground — what God has put in the ground. We were noticing that we, ourselves, came out of the ground. There is nothing in a human body but what comes out of the ground. Scientific men would admit that; there is not a single element in our bodies but what came from the ground. So with the cattle. God said, “Let the earth bring forth four-footed beasts and creeping things after their kind.” What a wonderful thing the earth is! “Let the earth bring forth grass — the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree,” and so forth. The earth brought them forth. The power of God was exercised, of course, but the earth is the source. The fulness of the earth is all that comes out of the earth. So that we are not exactly intended to look at a lily and say, “What a wonderful lily!” but “What a wonderful earth!” We are to look at the lily and to consider it. But the point is not the lily, but the earth. The earth is the source of the lily. It says, “The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof.” The fulness is everything that comes out of the earth.
Again it says, “Let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof” (1 Chronicles 16: 32). What a wonderful sphere the sea is! Think of what comes out of the sea! God said, “Let the sea swarm with living creatures after their kind.” These wonderful creatures are innumerable; they have their origin in the sea; they come out of the sea — in variety itself beyond us to understand; in number innumerable. The life in the sea cannot be conceived by the human mind. It is not a question of looking at leviathan and saying, “What a wonderful animal it is!” but “What a wonderful thing the sea is that can bring forth these things!” The fulness of the sea has its origin in the sea. God says, “Let it roar.” He wants man to hear it. He wants man to hear the witness of the sea and its fulness. You see thus His wonders.
I believe that helps us to understand what scripture means by “fulness” — which is not the thing itself. The plant is not the earth, but it comes out of the earth. The fish are not the sea; they come out of it. They have their origin in the sea. Then what shall we say, dear brethren, of that wonderful passage in Colossians “In Him (Christ, the anointed Man) dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily”? We could never compass the fulness of the earth — what has and does and will come out of the earth; we could never measure what comes out of the sea — its fulness. But here in this wonderful passage we have something far greater than the fulness of the earth, far greater than the fulness of the sea; we have all the fulness of the Godhead — all that that comes out of the Godhead. The fulness does not mean God, personally; but it means all that that flows out of the Godhead — everything — every attribute — every feature that is proper to the Godhead, that finds its expression in the Godhead, dwells in Him bodily, Colossians 1: 19 says: “For it was pleasing that in Him should all fulness dwell” — that is in the past tense; but in Colossians 2: 9 it is present, it is there now. I believe that if we got the sense of that, we would rejoice to be put in touch with One in whom all the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily! One could not speak of all the fulness of the Godhead. Think of what is proper to God! The fulness relates to what comes from God — power, light, wisdom, patience, comfort (”God shall wipe all tears away” — comfort is proper to God), stability (God is a Rock), faithfulness, every single thing that comes into expression because of what God is. The fulness of it all dwells in Him bodily. It dwells in that blessed Man to whom we belong; whose Spirit we have; who is head of His body, the assembly; so that the apostle says, “Ye are complete in Him.” We have everything, because all that flows from God, what God is, in its entirety dwells in Christ bodily. It resides there for ever. It was here when He was here in lowly Manhood. It was pleasing that in Him all fulness should dwell. It is a wonderful expression — that lowly dependent Man here on earth — Jesus; it says, “It was pleasing”; it was one of the things that was pleasing to the Godhead, that all fulness should live there. What a sense of trustworthiness it gives that God could deposit all His wisdom there. We often cannot be trusted with much; we are not great enough. All the Divine wisdom can dwell in that blessed Man; then power — all power — is given to Him in heaven and on earth. Think of such an One! The whole power of the Godhead — eternal power — can be vested in that blessed Man and reside there for ever. And patience; think of the patience of God! I do not think we have the faintest idea how to measure God’s patience. We have no standard that can afford us a measurement of the patience that is proper to God — the God of patience! Think of the patience of Christ! All the patience that is proper to the Godhead resides in Jesus. It was there when He was here, and is still there. Then mercy; compassion; faithfulness — God is faithful; the totality of Divine faithfulness resides in Jesus. One could only suggest a little like that as indicating what is meant by all the fulness. As we look at the earth with all the trees, plants, herbs, it tells us what comes out of the earth; as we look at the features of Christ, it tells us the character of God, what flows from God. All the fulness is pleased to dwell in Him bodily. Bodily, I take it to mean in Him as Man. When you think of Him bodily, it is as having become Man, and as such He is the Vessel that holds eternally all the fulness of the Godhead. If the power and the joy of that came more into our hearts, and we have to face a little more emptying, I think it would help us; we would be equipped for the emptying. I do not mean to say we would not feel it. In view of the breaking of links with this world. He intends us to feel it; but we have One in whom the fulness is. The apostle says, “Ye are complete in Him.” You do not want philosophy, or vain deceit, or traditions of men; you want Christ because all the fulness of God dwells there.
I wanted to say a word or two as to Ephesians. You have another expression there that is full of the greatest instruction — “the fulness of the times.” One is impressed with God’s condescension to speak to us of time. One who inhabits eternity, to whom time does not apply. His name is “I Am” — not “I was,” not “I will be,” but eternally “I Am.” Time does not in itself apply to God. But in His desire to teach us (scripture says, “Who teaches like Him”), He introduces time. He divides it into days, nights, weeks, months, years; into periods — the millennium is one period. It says of Him: “A thousand years are as yesterday when it is passed and as a watch in the night.” God introduces time and times. In God’s dealings with His creatures there are various times. Job says, “Oh that times were treasured up before thee!” (N.T.) They are treasured; God took account of the times of man’s ignorance; He overlooked that. Then there was the “fulness of the time” when God sent forth His Son. What comes out of time is the appearance here of His Son. The great issue of time is the appearance of Christ. That is what God brought in time for. “When the fulness of the time was come God sent forth His Son ... that we might receive sonship” (Galatians 4: 4). God created time to bring Christ in. That is the issue of it. There was another time God took account of from eternity; that was “the due time Christ died.” It says “in the due time” — a moment that was set apart by God in time, which He took account of to a day, to an hour — that one day is divided into hours. It is called the due time when Christ should die. These things come out of time. They are part of what issues out of time — the appearance of Christ in manhood.
In Ephesians we read: the dispensation of the fulness of the times — that is, time broken into sections; a time for the testimony to be rendered is one, for instance — that is the present time. There is also the fulness of the times. What comes out of the fulness of the times is this: there is going to be one period when everything in heaven and on earth is headed up in Christ — not eternity. It will go into eternity. It refers to the coming day of the 1000 years. The fulness of times when everything that exists in the heavens — angels, all the heavenly families,
of which there are many, including the church — everything on earth all headed up in Christ. This will be the issue of all the times. There will be a time when everything in heaven and on earth comes under the living influence of Christ. What an issue! That is why God brought in time, to have a period of display and glory when Christ would give character to everything in heaven and on earth. Time is complete then — it is no longer needed, and eternity goes on. I think that helps us to see the bearing of the fulness of time. Time may be like a moment; the whole period of time may seem a moment in relation to eternity. It is like the earth, the sea — wonderful! God is infinitely wonderful. Time is wonderful. The earth is wonderful as shown in its fulness. The sea is wonderful as shown in all that comes out of it. God is wonderful; His name is wonderful — shown in all that comes from Him, resident in the person of Jesus. Time is wonderful, for in time the blessed Son of God has appeared, and Christ has died. There will be a period when He has headship over everything.
There is one more feature of fulness, dear brethren, referred to in the last verse. The apostle speaks of the present exaltation of Christ (verses 19 to 23). I wonder what that means to some of our hearts? — the assembly which is His body. I could not tell you how many members there are in that body. I could not tell you how many members there are in my body; every one of them different; every one of them wonderful. The assembly which is His body is wonderful; we are of His flesh and His bones; His body — a variety of members. It is wonderful to think of that — each having a feature of its own, a service of its own. But, dear brethren, the point is this — what a wonderful Person Christ is, that out of Him should come this fulness! I do not think it is meant to say, “What a wonderful vessel the church is!” It is wonderful; but the bearing is, “What a wonderful Person Christ is!” Out of Him comes all this fulness, composed of every member of the body of Christ. You look at them. You see Stephen. Stephen is part of the fulness. Everything that we look upon in Stephen and delight in came from Christ; he is part of the fulness of Him that filleth all in all. Then look at Phoebe: a servant of the church, quietly, silently, in oblivion and obscurity, patiently year by year serving the saints — all that came from Christ. She is one of the members of the body; the fulness of Him that filleth all in all. Look at the work of God in the saints. Think of the Reformation, for instance. See men tied to a post and burnt; see them have their tongues cut out with red-hot pincers; yet they will not be untrue to the Lord. It is wonderful. It is part of the fulness. The source is not the man himself; the source is Christ. So you look at the work of God today. Think of those the Lord has raised up patiently year by year in evil report and good, serving the saints, and teaching them. Where does it come from? It comes from Christ, the teacher. Patient continuance in well-doing has its origin in Christ. So it is with all the fulness. The whole assembly from Pentecost to the rapture composed of every single member is the fulness of Christ, having originated from no one but Christ. Take a blade of grass; the origin is not in the blade; the origin is in the earth. The fish is not the origin; the sea is the origin. Look at all that came out of Christ as Man; God is the origin. In Him is the fulness; God is the origin. Look at all that is in the assembly from first to last; it is the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.
One desires the Lord might impress us as we face the emptying of this world — we are surely going to face it. There may be a lull for a moment, but we have to face it. We are at the door of the period that is going on and on until this present world is a ruin, as we read in Isaiah 24: 12, N.T. Men hope and hope they can adjust things; but they cannot, because God has begun to empty the earth. How much we will taste of it before the Lord comes, I cannot say; but that is where we are — at the beginning of the emptying of this world. The Lord would help us to see where the fulness lies, available by the Spirit to the saints. We are in touch with the One Who gives character to the assembly, and so shall we be preserved as these things develop. None of the earth are going to escape, as it says, “as with the people, so with the, priest”; “as with the maid, so with the mistress.”
May the Lord encourage our hearts to see the boundless resources we are in touch with by the power of the Spirit — for His Name’s sake!