Colossians 2:9

But God answers the whole deception with three words of contrast: "not after Christ." Christ is the exact opposite of it all, the pattern and the test — "for," it says, "in Him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." There is not a lack, not a gap, not one single quality that goes to make up that fullness, that is not found bodily in Christ... So what room is left for poor human philosophy, or teaching, or worldly elements? Nothing can be added to God's fullness! It is enough for Him, and therefore enough for faith.

It is well known that theiotes (from theios, meaning divine), also translated "Godhead" in the Authorized Version, has a completely different force from theotes (from Theos, meaning God) in Colossians 2:9. In this second case it would fall far short of the apostle's aim to say only that the person of Christ is divine: all the fulness of the Deity, or Godhead in the strictest sense, he says, dwells in Him bodily.

We know God in Christ as a living Person who once lived bodily in this world, who still has His body above the world... in the Person of Christ "dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily," not only in His spirit, but really in Him bodily, though He is now glorified. He had a real, true body from the incarnation, and in that body all the fullness of the Godhead dwelt. The fullness of the Godhead never dwelt in the Father bodily, or in the Holy Spirit, but only in Christ.

There is a strong likeness between Col. 1:19 and verse 9 of our chapter; only there it refers to that which was true of Him in the days of His stay on earth, while here it stands true of Him today. It is hard to imagine a stronger statement of His deity. Yet the word "bodily" plainly implies that He is still Man.

There is something wonderfully blessed here. It is not seeking after God, hoping that we might feel after Him and find Him... but, as John says, "which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life" (1 John 1:1) — something brought home to the senses of men. Instead of working up our feelings to seek after something, God has come down to us, poor wretched creatures that we are... There is not a trouble, not a distress, not a feeling in the heart of man, that is not met in Christ... not as a doctrine only, but bodily.

Christ has taken a body and appeared in flesh. So the fulness of the Godhead is shown in a way the simplest people can know. It may take a giant mind to understand even the words in which philosophy struggles to express its guesses. Yet simple fishermen of Galilee can see the fulness of God in Christ, and so enter into truths the greatest natural mind cannot grasp.

First, all the fulness of the Godhead dwells in Him bodily. Instead of the misty speculations of men, we have the fulness of God bodily, in a real human body, and so with real effect for us, in the Person of Jesus Christ. Second, we are complete in Him; we need nothing outside of Christ. On one side, we have in Him God perfectly presented in all His fulness. On the other side, we have in Him perfection and completeness before God.