THE FULNESS (1)
THE FULNESS (1)
Colossians 1: 19, 20; Colossians 2: 9, 10; Ephesians 3: 19
JT The idea of fulness attaches especially to christianity as involving the complete shining out of God. There are no reserves. We are to be filled even to all the fulness of God. The passage in Colossians 1 has in mind the greatness of Christ rather than anything accruing to man from the fulness of God. It says, “In him all the fullness ... was pleased to dwell”. In chapter 2 it dwells “bodily” in Him so as to come within our range and apprehension, but its setting in chapter 1 is in relation to the greatness of Christ. There was One great enough here in whom all the fulness could dwell. Then in Ephesians, as I said, we are to be filled unto all the fulness of God. In Colossians 2 the fulness is within our range; that is, in Christ bodily, and we as apprehending it are filled full. These are the thoughts that one has entertained, and the Lord, I am assured, will help to open them up for us.
JD Does chapter 1 involve the Lord’s Person in Deity? It alludes to Him in manhood, but His greatness is in view, and this is one of the items of His greatness.
JT Yes, there is One in whom the fulness of Deity could reside. It is the great basis of the whole position, that there is a Man great enough for that.
RRT Is your thought that in relation to this subject of fulness, it was a thought that God began with? In the beginning there was a state of emptiness, contrary to God’s desire, but here the substance is brought out, and One is here in whom all the fulness is able to [p. 131] dwell.
JT Quite so. There was a state of emptiness, then God brought order out of the emptiness. It was a question of creation, what God is, as Creator, in bringing order out of chaos. The result of the operations in the six days helps to bring out the thought. Genesis 1 gives us the formation and order that God brought out, but the shining out of what was effected is in chapter 2; the idea of fulness is there. You have first the creation, but the development of it shows the idea of fulness, what works out in it. We may consider these chapters in regard to the fulness of the work of God in the saints. Genesis 2 is the shining out, the effulgence; that is what we need to see. We have man created in chapter 1 and in chapter 2 he is seen as formed by Jehovah Elohim, in relation to the history of the heavens and the earth. We have in chapter 2 the history of certain things before they grew, and man taken up in a new way, formed out of the dust of the earth, the earth being affected by the mist; and then the garden planted and the river flowing out of Eden to water it; the animals coming to Adam, and his naming them; and then Eve brought to him, and his naming her. Genesis 2 indicates the fulness of what “God had created in making it”. That is what God delighted in, the working out of what He had laid down basically, according to chapter 1. The time for the fulness of Deity to come out was not yet, but All was there. The idea of Deity, in the plural, which is the form used, is that All was there. In the beginning God — God was there in all that He is. He created the heavens and earth, and something happened, and then He begins again and sets up what we are accustomed to now. Adam was a figure of Him that was to come, but the fulness could not dwell in him, but, as we have seen, there is now a Man great enough for all that God is to reside [p. 132] in.
HG-h In that way Colossians 1 is God moving out.
JT Yes. He moved out in Genesis 1 as Creator, but not yet to effect His own eternal thoughts, although all was in His mind. Fulness in every respect depended upon the incarnation. Colossians develops the great fact and result of incarnation involving the fulness of God shining out.
RRT Adam was not great enough to give expression to the fulness of God, but here is One who is great enough for the fulness of God to dwell in.
JT But how very interested God was in that creature! He is mentioned again in chapter 2, as formed out of the dust of the earth, evidently as affected by the moisture, and God breathed into man and set him over the garden; he named the animals and his wife. So far, he was pleasing to God. It was further history. Genesis 2 is history in the sense of effulgence or shining out, so you get another name taken by God; Jehovah Elohim, the covenant God is brought in there. It is in that connection you get shining out. The name, Jehovah Elohim, might be counted twenty times in chapters 2 and 3, showing that God was working from His own point of view, and He was pleased with what was coming out, as seen in chapter 2.
EWM Is Jehovah Elohim God coming into revelation and covenant relations?
JT That is right, not only relations in creation, but covenant relations with men.
FCB Does this expression in Colossians 1 refer to any particular time in the Lord’s pathway?
JT It refers to Jesus properly as to public testimony, when the voice from heaven announced His sonship and the Spirit came down. What was there was the same as was there before, but we are dealing with testimony and what comes to our [p. 133] notice. The allusion would be to His testimony. It does not say manhood in this verse, but that the fulness was in the Person. It was in manhood, only that it is viewed as the greatness of the Person who was there.
JD Would the end of the previous verse help, “That in all things he might have the pre-eminence”. That would involve His manhood.
JT Quite so. The passage begins with God as Father having translated us into the kingdom of His Son. That is where the subject begins. The allusion is to manhood, but it is to bring out the greatness of the Person of Christ. Headship of the assembly is brought in in that very setting.
CSP Does not Solomon speak of this, that the heavens were not great enough to contain Jehovah?
JT Just so. They were not great enough for Him to reside in, but here is a Man great enough. It is a very wonderful thought that there should be a Man greater than the heavens, the created sphere. “The heaven of heavens cannot contain thee”, Solomon said, and yet as Solomon finished his prayer the glory filled the house, as if to point to this very verse, a type of Christ, great enough for the dwelling of all the fulness of Deity.
JD He was viewed here as Man, and “in him all the fulness ... was pleased to dwell, and by him to reconcile all things to itself”. The word contemplates Christ as Man here, and God’s thoughts toward man set forth in Him.
JT That is the thought, without going so far in applying it, but it does bring in the primary thought of reconciliation; but the thought is to bring out the greatness of the Person.
HG-h Does the expression that He has “translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love” contemplate that there must be material to take this [p. 134] in?
JT Just so. That is where we are, and in that kingdom all this truth is opened up as to His Person, the Person into whose kingdom we are translated. Proverbs helps us as regards that statement; the Son of the Father’s love is spoken of there anticipatively, and you get the question, “What is his name, and what is his son’s name ... ?” Proverbs 30: 4. Colossians helps us as to who this Person is.
WGH Does that give character to the mediatorial system?
JT It all hinges on who the Person is. The Lord has raised this question. It is not what He is in absolute Deity, but what He is as Man, a divine Person in manhood. How great He is!
JLF The voice in Matthew 3 says, “This is my beloved Son”, and in Mark and Luke the word is, “Thou art my beloved Son”, calling attention to the greatness of the Person.
JT Attention is called to Him. We have ‘This’ and ‘Thou’. “Thou” is the Lord Himself, “this” is for others.
GC In His greatness we recognise His supremacy over all, that is as Man.
JT This is what these verses bring out in such a striking way. After we are told that we are translated into His kingdom, it goes on to say in verse 14, “In whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins; who is image of the invisible God, firstborn of all creation”. It is all one great statement as to the Person, the personal greatness of Christ in manhood. How great a matter it is that we should be conversant with these things, because we are viewed in the kingdom of the Son of the Father’s love. The Lord says to the disciples, “But ye, who do ye say that I am?”. That is the question that should come to us at a meeting like this. Who is He?
MDF Do you see the greatness of Him by what He has done?
[p. 135] JT Yes, creative power, and He precedes all things, in that He is the “image of the invisible God”. All that is intimated too. You can understand if we were at Colosse when this letter came, how spiritual brethren would say, ‘These are wonderful things. We did not know Christ was so great’. That is how it ought to come to us, so that we get the greatness into our souls. Professing christianity is saying this and that. But what do you say? It is not what we think, but what we say, about Him.
RRT The emphasis here is on the word, “All the fulness”. The Spirit of God would indicate a point had been reached in this blessed Person in whom there were no limits. All the fulness was pleased to dwell.
JT I think the allusion would be to all that preceded. There was some little shining out from the outset, but all is the thought now.
JD Would that verse in John 1 come in as to the fulness of life, “In him was life, and the life was the light of men”?
JT I think so. Of course, it is life in the sense in which we participate in it, but it can only be said of Him.
WGH In Hebrews it says, “Who being the effulgence of his glory and the expression of his substance”. Would that come in?
JT I think it would. “The expression of his substance” would allude to the Being of God, the expression of it being fundamental to christianity.
LES Do you think the fulness would be seen somewhat in the beginning of Joshua 3: 7? “This day will I begin to magnify thee in the sight of all Israel”?
JT Just so. This comes out before our eyes. That is what a meeting like this is for, that Christ might be magnified in our eyes, because He is not magnified in the world. “Who do ye say that I am?”. What are we saying about the greatness of Christ? The Lord has called attention to this peculiarly for many years back, and the question is, Are we saying these things that are brought out and made clear as to His Person?
WB Why do you make a difference between what we say and what we think?
JT There are many who think, but thinking is not testimony. It is right to think, of course, “Think on these things”; but thinking is not testimony. So it is with many young christians, they do not come into salvation because they confine themselves to thinking. The word is “confess”.
EWM So that Peter gave expression to divine revelation regarding the Person of the Lord.
JT Yes, he said it by the Spirit, the principle of revelation, showing that it is a spiritual matter. It is not a mere mental thing with us, because many are christians, and it is what the creed says about Christ that they say. That may be right enough so far, but it is what is known in one’s soul, what one has spiritually, that is of value. It is a time of spirituality. You cannot have Christ aside from spirituality. That is what is in mind. The Lord says to Peter, “Flesh and blood has not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in the heavens”.
WB I think that is very helpful. So much lies with confession.
JT Yes, it is a great matter, because christians regard what is in the creed, what is learned doctrinally, but the forty days that the Lord sojourned here after He arose is to bring out the spiritual side of our position. You cannot have christianity without that. The forty days were as essential as the three and a half years of testimony. They are both essential to christianity. The Lord, could have gone to heaven at once after He arose, but it was a question of bringing out [p. 137] spirituality.
JD Would you say just a few words on what you mean by ‘spirituality’?
JT The Lord is never referred to as being in two places: He was never said to have come through closed doors during His sojourn. The natural mind could take in His movements in the flesh. We read of His hiding Himself from them and going through the midst of them, but it is not spiritual in that sense, it is a physical movement in each case. Whereas in resurrection, as risen, you have His coming in. We are told expressly that the doors were shut; it is to be understood spiritually. The Christian Scientists cannot explain that, it is a spiritual matter. Luke corroborates that in speaking of the Lord going with the two who were on the way to Emmaus, and then while the Lord gave thanks He vanished out of their sight. That is a spiritual matter. No one can explain that physically, but they became spiritual by it; they were not upset by it. They were not perturbed. They got up and put on their clothes and went to Jerusalem without the least suggestion of being perturbed by what occurred. They related to the company how He came in and how He was made known to them in the breaking of bread. That was spiritual. Others said, He had appeared to Simon, which is intelligence, but that He should have vanished whilst He broke bread is what is spiritual. And whilst they were saying these things Jesus Himself stood in their midst and they are upset. Why is that? They were not spiritual.
RRT They had not reached that in the boat when they thought they had seen a spirit. When the Lord came to them on the water they thought they had seen a spirit.
JT It was not a spirit, it was a real physical Person. It is the idea of spirituality, that we can take in what is meant by a thing; that we are being introduced into the spiritual world and to learn to [p. 138] think spiritually. They were affrighted, upset, and thought they had seen a spirit again, just as they thought in the boat. But the Lord says, “A spirit has not flesh and bones as ye see me having”. That is a spiritual thing. He came in through closed doors and yet He is flesh and bones, and He proceeded to allay their fears, and said, “Have ye anything here to eat?”. It was for them to prove that it was real humanity that was there.
RRT The thought is that if we are spiritual we would be accustomed to the Lord’s movements now in that manner, that we would not be affrighted; but if we are spiritual we would be accustomed to when the Lord comes in.
JT That is the thought, because we get on pretty well in the meetings in regard to order and in regard to what we say, as breaking the bread, but when the Lord comes in, that is where we miss things. That is the great defect; the whole of the external thing may be quite acceptable. “Rejoicing and seeing your order” (Colossians 2: 5), the apostle says, but when the spiritual side is presented we are upset. Luke would teach us, in his record in chapter 24, that they were saying these things and while they were saying them the Lord appeared; as much as to say, ‘I am pleased with what you are saying’, but afterwards they were upset. You could not call that a good meeting. It is a confused meeting, and why? because the Lord is there; a very remarkable thing. The Lord had in mind to add to the thing for them, but they are confused.
GJB He showed them His hands and His feet.
JT Quite so. That is to show them that it was Himself, but why should the saints be perturbed? It is the Lord. It would look as though there was an unspiritual element, which is often the case. You might have a few spiritual brothers, but they cannot [p. 139] carry things.
JD How do you think the Lord comes in today?
JT It is a wholly spiritual matter. What happens is in us, not in the room, but what happens is in the saints. It is the state of our souls that enables us to detect it. It is by virtue of the Spirit being here as a medium. If He came in the body He would stand outside. But in coming in spiritually, He is in all of us, so it is a question of what we are.
LES It suggests confession, of naming the name of the Lord, involving spiritual sensibilities on our part.
JT Yes, we might come to this later on. We are slipping away from the great thought we have. It is well that we should have the general position in mind, that the Lord comes in spiritually, but in such wise that it is the Lord, and the spiritual one says, “It is the Lord”. That leads to the assembly.
GC In thinking of Peter, it is what we say. Peter would say we can only say what we have seen and heard of the Lord, who He was.
JT Just so. You get a great deal in the forty days. You never could have christianity without the forty days. You might have blessing, but not christianity. Paul stresses the different appearings of the Lord after He arose. He appeared to Cephas, to the twelve, to five hundred, to James, to all the apostles. If we do not understand that, we do not understand the assembly. We get along pretty well in the breaking of bread, but when the Lord comes in we are not able to say, “It is the Lord”.
HG-h Then the forty days are for education in view of His appearing.
JT The Lord did not go up at once. In the forty days seen of them, He presented Himself living, as if to say, ‘You must see Me as I wish you to see Me’. He presented Himself alive after He suffered.
[p. 140] JAW Have you something in your mind as to what answers to the forty days now in spiritual history?
JT The forty days denote the great importance of spirituality. We have to come to that, and it is to be treasured now. We do not get forty days again, but the effect of the forty days remains in the treasury. That is, the Holy Spirit has that here and we come into it.
JF In what we have detailed for us, we get along pretty well, but when it comes to what is spiritual, we are tested. We show how far along we are.
JT I think so, and it comes out in the hymns and the way we speak.
JD How far do you think the coming in of the Lord involves a spiritual touch from a brother?
JT Usually it is so. It works out in us. The Lord does not come in and stand beside us, He would speak Himself. He is here bodily in the sense of the saints being His body.
RRT John speaks of what we have heard from the beginning. Would that include the forty days?
JT I think so, more particularly that. It concerns the word of life, what He was as risen, although it was always there.
RRT John says, “That which was from the beginning”. He goes back.
JT That is the beginning of Christ really. The resurrection is not the beginning.
Going back to Colossians, it is the greatness of the Person here, to be the residence of Deity in His attributes. But fulness is not only attributes, but what the Deity is in the sense as coming out in Christ. It is no less than God.
JD [p. 141] It involves revelation.
EWM Colossians 2: 9 is remarkable. It involves not only His divinity but His deity.
JT It is a different word. We have divinity in Romans 1 and in Acts 17, but it is a lesser word. It is not such a full word. God is the Deity, but in these two verses in Colossians 1 the Deity is not mentioned, but it is in Colossians 2. All the fulness of the Godhead is there. In chapter 1 it is even stronger, in the sense that who else could it be? What fulness could it be? The fulness could be taken almost as a name or a title. Like the word “greatness” in Hebrews, “Set himself down on the right hand of the greatness on high”. What greatness is that? The soul is filled with the infinitude, that all was there in the Person of a Man here. What a marvellous thing it is. Chapter 2 shows that it is within our reach.
GJB All that we have in Christ in all this greatness is to be enjoyed now.
JT Just so. In chapter 2, Paul says, “In him dwells all the fulness”, that is the present tense, dwells. In chapter 1, “In him all the fulness ... was pleased to dwell”; that is past tense. That is the one great fact that all the fulness was pleased to dwell there.
HG-h Is the thought that the fulness of the Godhead was pleased to dwell in that Person, so that God would make His dwelling there?
JT I think it is amplified by, “In whom I have found my delight”. I think that is the allusion.
JD That would be in manhood.
JT Yes, manifestly. So here it is the Son we begin with, who has a kingdom into which we are translated. It refers to Christ today. The intent is, what can I say about Him now? If this meeting does not bring more into my soul, then it is of no value. He would say, What are you saying [p. 142] about Me?
LES Is this in view of the filling out of all things as in 1 Corinthians 15, “that God may be all in all”?
JT Quite so. We would be prepared for all, “all things”, which we call the eternal state of things, where the Son is subjected and God is all in all; that is, the whole domain is filled. The assembly is said to be filled unto all the fulness. The brain will never be puzzled there. Even my own being I do not understand, and certainly the broad creation is inscrutable to me. What is beyond that? If I am filled in the fulness I am stayed and satisfied. There is no lack or anxiety or uncertainty. The assembly is to be filled unto all the fulness of God. That is the eternal state of things.
JD Is it not remarkable that in Colossians 2 it says, “In him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily”, and immediately follows the statement that brings before us the philosophy of the world, and Paul goes on to speak of the perfection of the saints in Christ?
JT It is filled full. There is no room for anything else in you.
HG-h In result of the idea of God coming out in this way, the whole scene will be eventually permeated.
JD God will be all in all.
JT It is not “all” in an objective sense, but we are to be filled.
WB You said that Colossians 1: 19 was in the past tense. That seems very remarkable, and I was wondering if that would refer to the time when the Lord was upon the earth?
JT I think so.
WB Is it what the divine Persons saw in the Lord Jesus, that They were pleased to dwell there?
JT That is the way it is put. As history was being made in heaven in the first moment when the [p. 143] Lord breathed, it was what was seen here that heaven is occupied with. What was there was so pleasing that the fulness was pleased to dwell there. The great fact is that Jesus was here, the Son of the Father’s love. When at the Jordan, I think, He was the complete expression of it. The heaven was opened to Him and the voice heard, but the Father’s name is not mentioned. Of course, it is to be borne in mind that it is the Father’s voice. That is a deduction, but the point is the voice, it is Deity that is speaking, and in “My beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight”, we have a Man under His eye. Then the Holy Spirit came down in the form of a dove. The totality of the Deity spiritually was there.
CSP Do I understand that it is first the greatness of God, then the greatness of the incarnation, and the greatness of the eternal position. God all in all? All that is in view here.
JT It ought to affect us so that we would be able to speak about these things. A little has been said about them, and it has drawn forth a great deal of opposition, but that does not mean that we should not continue to speak of these things. How great the Person, how great the incarnation!
JD Do you think the truth is that the more they are spoken of, the grander they become? The service of God from the saints rises to higher levels.
JT We come into the greatness. When Nathan came to David and spoke about Solomon, Jehovah says, ‘He is going to be my son’, pointing to Christ. “I will be his father, and he shall be my son”, 2 Samuel 7: 14. David was limited as regards what he was to do; he was not to build the house. His son is to build the house. David entered into the house that then was and sat before the Lord, and he makes a remarkable speech. You are impressed with the number of titles he uses in addressing Jehovah.
[p. 144] What remarkable richness there is in his soul as to God. The Lord would help us in that now, that the Deity be brought before us and within our range in the sense of fulness, that we should be encouraged in our souls, and speak to God not merely in technical terms, but speak to Him about Himself in terms of richness in our own souls.
CSP So that the saints at the present time come into the good of reconciliation and are able to respond to God.
JT You see how it proceeds at once to speak, “By him to reconcile all things to itself”. And then, “You ... yet now has it reconciled in the body of his flesh” so that you can see what the mind of God is in the fulness coming in.
GC Reconciliation puts us in a position with God where He can come in.
RB Is there any reflection of the fulness of God to be seen in the assembly now?
JT I think we shall see that in our next meeting, as to how it works out in christianity. The fulness of Christ will come in, in the next reading, and how the assembly is His fulness, the fulness of Him who fills all in all, but we should get into our souls now the greatness of the One in whom God was pleased to dwell, not ‘is’, but “was”: when He was alone here, not when He was in heaven. His greatness would be seen in that the residence of the fulness of the Godhead was there.
JLF One of the important things that the Colossians would learn was that they were complete in Him.
JT All the fulness being in Him bodily means that it is within our apprehension.
JLF The completeness of the saints is to be the result of that.
[p. 145] JT If a man came to you with a philosophical book you would say — I do not need that, and that is the end of it.
JD With this in mind, as to the Son, all the fulness of the Godhead dwelling, how much opens up and becomes increasingly clear to us.
JT You get in John’s gospel what amplifies all this. John says, “I beheld the Spirit descending”. Nobody else says that. It is a plain statement. But John says, “I have seen and borne witness that this is the Son of God”. And as he was about to die, he said, “He must increase, but I must decrease”. He is filled full of Christ.
JLF Why is it in John’s gospel that John the baptist bears record and in Matthew he is preaching?
JT The apostle John brings him in as an ideal witness although he was with Christ only a few months. The Evangelist says, “We have contemplated his glory, a glory as of an only-begotten with a father, full of grace and truth”. Then the Baptist bears witness, “This was he of whom I said, He that comes after me is preferred before me, for he was before me”. That is the way John is brought in in John’s gospel. He is the ideal witness, because he says, “He ... is preferred before me”. He acknowledges that Christ has taken a place before him.
HG-h The fact that he sees the Spirit descending and abiding upon Him shows he understands where the fulness dwells.
JT I think it bears out this passage. John’s gospel bears it out in that way in the testimony of John the baptist, that he began by saying He was preferred before him, then progressed, and in chapter 3 says that He must increase. He has the grasp of the thing.
EWM It is healthy for a soul by the help of the Spirit to contemplate the glory of the Lord, to contemplate who He [p. 146] is.
JT The Lord is calling our attention to that, whether we are profiting by the things that have come out and have been spoken of, or whether they are just in books to be laid on our shelves like a creed.
JD What you say as to John is most interesting. He said, “I knew him not”, but then he said as to Him, “I beheld the Spirit descending as a dove from heaven, and it abode upon him”. It seems to me your path changes after you have seen that; you come to the point where you see the Spirit of God descending upon a sinless One.
JT That is the starting point of all in relation to the assembly. What is said in chapter 3 shows that John progressed in the thing. I do not think his disciples progressed so well, because some of them were disputing about purification; that did not mean anything, but John was not engaged with that.
GC John says, “Of his fulness we all have received, and grace upon grace”.
JT I think that was John the evangelist. It is not easy to tell in these early chapters in John. It is designed to honour John the baptist, that he came near to the evangelist’s testimony.
EMcG Why do you put so much stress on the speaking?
JT Because it is testimony. The Lord said to the cleansed leper, “Go, shew thyself to the priest, and offer the gift which Moses ordained, for a testimony to them”, Matthew 8: 4. He does not say for a testimony to him, but “to them”, as though the whole system would be in mind. God would witness to Christ.
JLF Anybody who does not say anything about Christ is not an ideal witness.
JD Being filled to all the fulness of God — does that in your mind [p. 147] take in the three Persons?
JT The Deity must take in all three Persons. Only, when Scripture presents them as in a mediatorial position, it is well to have in our minds how Scripture presents things, so that the apostle says, “To us there is one God”, 1 Corinthians 8: 6. That abstractly must take in all the Persons, but he fixes it on one Person, the Father.
JD Do you think that is here at the end of the apostle’s prayer? “To know the love of the Christ”, that is one Person in the divine economy. Then, “that ye might be filled even to all the fulness of God”. Is it God the Father in that sense?
JT The Deity is expressed in that one Person; no one excludes the others, but you are leaving Them as abstractly inscrutable. I cannot grasp these things; my wisdom is to follow the divine way of teaching.
RRT In relation to what we are speaking of in John, it says that the Spirit abode upon Him, but here it is that all the fulness was pleased to dwell in Him. I was wondering if this is a little in advance of John’s thought?
JT John could only speak of what he saw; that is the testimony. We have to trust to direct statements of Scripture for many things.
FCB When you speak of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, do you have one divine Person in mind?
JT That is how the Scripture presents it, “One God, the Father ... and one Lord, Jesus Christ”. In approaching God we have access to God by one Spirit. It is all very simple as regards the link between the Three. If we get to thinking first of all of God in the absolute, standing in relation to nothing, and then God in the economy, that is in relation to all creatures, we shall see that it becomes simple. And two of the Persons take mediatorial positions,
[p. 148] taking lowly places in order to serve, that we might come into the apprehension of God as to who He is.
MDF Peter says, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God”. Is that in relation to God or in relation to man?
JT I think Peter’s confession to Christ is in relation to man, in relation to testimony. The whole testimony would support that, but the whole testimony taught that such an One as that is come in revelation. It makes it a very spiritual matter.
RRT Would it suggest the greatness of the anointing, that He was the Christ — the anointed One?
JT I do not think the anointing is in view until He was anointed by the Spirit. There is the mingling in the type of the meat offering, the mingling of oil and fine flour, but I do not connect the anointing with Him until He was anointed. We had better go by the Scriptures. When Peter confesses Him that He is the Christ, that means that He is the anointed. The Son of the living God is that He is living.
JD As to Jesus in the first thirty years of His life, the testimony does not seem to be connected with that. He was the fine flour mingled with oil.
JT So it says He began to be about thirty years of age. He answered to the divine thought as to “the Christ”.
LES Would the inscrutability of Deity lie behind the thought of fulness?
JT Yes, it would. We always carry that thought in our minds. Fulness indicates He has come out according to what God has been, pleased to show. He is the invisible God (Colossians 1: 15). The fulness is dwelling in the Person here on earth.
EWM I was thinking of the remark you made at the beginning — Jehovah Elohim, God coming into revelation. It comes in properly in Exodus 3.
[p. 149] It was there before, and in the name apparently, but not the significance of it, “I AM”, the ever-present God.
HG-h I was going to ask what was in your mind in connection with “that ye may be filled even to all the fulness of God”, Ephesians 3: 19.
JT We take all that in so far as we are capacitated. We are not filled with other things. It says in Colossians 2, “Ye are complete in him”, that is, towards God, “in him”, not ‘by Him’. It is our state before God. The idea of Christ begins in Romans. In Colossians it is the completeness of the furnishings of the saints as reflecting the fulness. It is what we are towards God, that is the idea in Colossians, so that we say we do not need that book or that course of instruction. We have it all, and more, in Christ. The point in Colossians is more Christ than God, but in Ephesians it is more God than Christ. The thought is amplified in the fulness of God. It is the same idea, but we are brought into eternal relations in being filled to all the fulness of God. The apostle’s mind is so full of the idea that he goes on to say that the glory of God is to be in the assembly in Christ Jesus unto all generations of the age of ages. In that sense the assembly is filled with God, filled unto all the fulness of God.
JD One feels the need in these days of the apostle’s word, “Be not drunk with wine, in which is debauchery”, Ephesians 5: 18. That does not mean literally wine, but it is anything that would fill the mind with philosophy or vain deceit. Our mind is to be filled with the Spirit.
JT Wine has an intoxicating effect. We are not to be filled with that, but to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
LES Would Philippians 3 be the setting forth of [p. 150] that?
JT I suppose Philippians 3 is a model for us in the way of energy and laying hold of the great things that are presented to us. We see in Philippians the concrete example of one filled full of Christ. There is no need for anything else.
CSP What is the bearing of the dimensions given in Ephesians 3, the breadth, length, depth and height?
JT There is a thought in these dimensions which is unusual, not material things. It bears out that they cannot be fully apprehended but by the power of His Spirit in the inner man. It is power in the soul, that you might be strengthened with power by the Spirit in the inner man (Ephesians 3: 16). It is that we might take in the four dimensions. Three dimensions is what we have in creation, but when you get four, you get what depends upon Deity, the breadth, length, depth and height. The depth is what we do not understand. We can understand the exaltation of Christ into heaven, because Ephesians 4: 10 says, “He ... has also ascended up above all the heavens”, and you touch the inscrutable. That is the height, but the depth has to do with what is below us, and that brings out the degradation to which Christ went that He could say, “I am a worm, and no man”. Death brings out the power of compression in Christ, that He could go to such a length. It is beyond me to understand that He could say, “I am a worm, and no man”.
CSP Do you think the love of Christ expressed that?
JT The love of Christ constrains us in that way. How much do we feed on the idea of death? How are we affected as we see an opened grave? No one ever realised the utter degradation that attaches to man as having sinned; no one but a [p. 151] divine Person could shrink from it in the way that the psalmist speaks as to it in Psalm 22.
HG-h It was essential if all things were to be filled.
JT It is the expansion from one going so low, becoming so small.
WGH “He that descended is the same who has also ascended”, Ephesians 4: 10.
JD Would the lower parts of the earth mean more than death?
JT It is that He went down to the very depths, the lower parts. He went down to the bottoms of the mountains, as Jonah says. No one could grasp or speak of it as Christ did.
CSP All that was necessary that the assembly might be filled unto the fulness of God.
JT Just so. The mind that is in Christ Jesus, the mind to go down. How pleasing that was to God. Think of Him in Psalm 16 saying to God, “My goodness extendeth not to thee”. I do not understand it, but the Lord said that. There is the power of compression, the power of going down and down, as answering to the will of God.