222. Fullness of God
Ephesians 3:19And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God.
We are filled with all the fullness of God. That is quite something to promise. The fullness of the Godhead dwelt bodily in Jesus Christ. That we can sort of understand, but that we sinful humans should be filled with all the fullness of God is something else again. But think of it: if Jesus is God and God dwells completely in the human body of Jesus, and Jesus dwells in us by faith, then the fullness of God fills the body of each believer as well.
We certainly don’t see that truth and we are aware of our own sin that dwells in the body of death. So we ask, “How can that be?” It is seen with the eyes of faith. Our natural eyes see sin much more readily and much abundantly than they see God. But the eyes of faith see things differently: while sin resides in the body so also the fullness of God resides alongside as well. The mystery of being at the same time a “saint and a sinner” fully and all the time is a mystery; a mystery is a truth that we cannot understand. It must be believed; that is why we have the Word of God, to reveal to faith the things we cannot see. Both “saint and sinner” is a paradox that we must hold in tension all the time. Being consciously aware of both simultaneously is only possible by the power of God. The Gospel of God is the power of God.
Knowing the love of Christ fills with the fullness. The love of Christ is not apprehended naturally, in nature. While nature reveals many things about God, a beautiful sunset does not tell us that God loves us. That must be supernaturally revealed. We hear the Gospel and we believe it; faith apprehends. The conscious awareness of God’s loving presence needs to be developed, nurtured, fed, practiced and lived out regularly. The Law and our own works and efforts will not tell us the love of God; only the Gospel tells us “Jesus loves me, this I know.”
Even when we know the love of Christ we will never know it all, how deep and high and broad and wide it really is. We will not exhaust the knowledge of the love of Christ in one lifetime; therefore we continue to be told and reminded of the Gospel that fills us with Christ’s love.The fullness of God does fill us fully, but we do not exhaust all the fullness and potential power of the love that is really present. Our enemies are constantly tempting us to unbelief, misbelief, and short belief. The Gospel empowers us to believe and then believe some more. Pray with Paul that you may be able to comprehend with all the saints the depths of Jesus’ love and the fullness of Christ’s indwelling.