What is thePleroma?

The word is from πληρόω, 'to fill full.' The believer is complete in Christ, or filled full, referring to all fulness dwelling in Christ: the fulness of the Godhead is in Christ, as towards the believer, and the believer, as toward God, is complete in Him. Col. 2:10. The Colossians are prayed for that they might be 'complete in all the will of God,' or 'fully assured' in all the will of God, as most Editors read it. Col. 4:12.

Verse 19. Hitherto we have seen Christ the image of God, and Head of all things. He presents Himself now to us, uniting all fulness in His Person. There dwelt all the fulness. The Gnostics had imagined a fulness in which Jesus occupied one place only. Now to preserve for the Lord His true place, the apostle declares that, far from belonging to a fulness, Jesus is the one in whom all the fulness was pleased to dwell. What is this fulness? It is deity.

We must therefore look for some passage in Scripture to settle the meaning and use of the word "assembly"; we find one which has all the clearness of a definition: "And hath made Him head over all things to the Church, which is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all" (Eph. 1:22-23). We are in this part of Ephesians occupied with a risen and glorified Christ. He has been raised from the dead in proof of an accomplished redemption, and, exalted to the right hand of God, all things being put beneath His feet. He occupies that position not merely as the witness of eternal redemption — that God has accepted His work on the cross not merely as the representative of His people before God, the measure of their acceptance and their righteousness — but He is there as Head of the Church, which is His Body. This is figurative language, no doubt, but clear none the less. It suggests not only Lordship over His people, but declares for them the closest connection, the same life, the same interests, and the same prospects as His own. "The fulness of Him that filleth all in all" shows that through grace the Church is the complement of Christ. As at the beginning, when God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make a help meet for him" (Gen. 2:18), so God now likens the Church in its relation to Christ to a wife in relation to the husband — the complement, the rounding out (amazing thought!) of the second Adam (Eph. 5:22-33). We would not for a moment hint that our adorable Lord needed the Church to add anything to the worth, dignity, or beauty of His peerless person, either as Son of God or Son of Man. In grace, however, He has taken her into fellowship with Himself, and to all eternity she will be the vessel in which His grace, love, power, and blessing, will be displayed.

In the next place we learn in the revelation of the mystery how God, in His most wonderful purpose and grace, has associated believers of the present dispensation with Christ, in this place of honour and glory, as His body and His bride. In this place, when risen and exalted, He is given to be head over all things to the church, which is His body. It does not say head over the church, but head over all things to the church. Surely nothing could more fully display the riches of God's grace than that He should be pleased to associate the church (that is, all saints from Pentecost until the Lord comes) with Christ, the Man of His purpose, His own blessed Son, the One in whom is all His pleasure. Yet so it is. Every believer indwelt by the Spirit is united to Christ, the living Head, as a member of His body, and is regarded by the Lord as a part of Himself. The church is thus the fulness of Him who filleth all in all, the fulness of the mystic Man, the subject of God's purpose - that is, Christ the Head and the church His body making the Christ, as it says in 1 Cor. 12:12, one perfect man according to God's counsel, which will be manifested as such in the day of glory. This is the force of the expression, "His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all."

The intimate connection of the church with Christ is illustrated by the figure of the body — "the church which is His body." This is not the relationship of subjects to a ruler, though of course it is at the same time true that the church is subject to Christ. But this expressive metaphor implies the marvellous truth that the eternal purpose of God would not be realised unless the church is united to the Risen Man in the place of glory to which He is exalted. Indeed, this is the particular import of the succeeding phrase, "the fulness of him that filleth all in all." The church is called out to become the complement, that which is necessary to complete the Mystic Man on high.

Ephesians 1:23. — "The fulness of Him which filleth all in all;" not of God the Father, which the Church is not nor can be, but the fulness or complement of Christ, viewed as the glorified heavenly man, whose body we are.

We saw the last time, that God has given Christ to be "Head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all." God's thought and purpose about the church is, that it should be the body of Christ when He takes dominion over all things. God has exalted Christ far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and has put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be Head over all things to the church, which is His body, and, therefore, called "the fulness of him that filleth all in all." All the fulness of the Godhead dwelt in Christ; but this is quite another thing. We are His fulness, that is, we complete the mystic man, Christ being the Head. For the church is that which completes and displays Christ's glory in the world to come; and then there will be not only Christ in heaven, known to the believer, but Christ ruler over the earth, over all things. It is a blessed thought, that it is not merely God as God who fills all things, but that Christ in redemption and mediatorial fulness in grace and righteousness fills all things. "He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things." Everything from the dust of the earth up to the throne of God has been the scene of the accomplishment of, and witness to, Christ's glory. But when He does actually thus "fill all things," and it is not merely known to faith, it will not be alone, but as the Head of the body which is now being formed, taking the church to share in His dominion and glory. All things will be subject to Him in that day; but the church will be associated with Him. Just as it was in the garden: Adam, the image of Him that was to come, was lord over all the creation; Eve was neither a part of the creation over which Adam reigned, nor yet had she any title of her own over it, but she was associated with him in the dominion. The passage in Ephesians 5 takes up this formation of Eve, and applies it to the church - "this is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church."

16 This is what raises us to the capacity and to the position where we can enjoy, and where we do enjoy, the glory of God in Christ. For if God has set Christ over all, by taking Him from among the dead, He has given Him also as Head to His body, which is the church. We partake in this glory as being the body, the members of Him who inherits it; we partake of it according to the same energy which has set Christ there; Christ thus exalted is Head over all things, and Head of His body, which is the church. The members have their part in the inheritance, by virtue of the working of the same power in them, which wrought in Christ when He was taken from among the dead and set at the right hand of God. The body is complement to the Head; it is in this sense its fulness. Christ fills all in all: this is His glory. It is He who divinely fills the whole universe - the church is the body of Him who does it.

Christ is not only Head over all things but He is to fill all things, so that all things are ultimately to take their character from Him. The church is His body and consequently His fulness — the body in which He is adequately expressed. This passage evidently contemplates the church in its largest and widest aspect, as the sum total of the saints of this dispensation; that is, the saints called out between the coming of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost and the coming again of the Lord Jesus.

Verse 4. "Seated on thrones." The symbols here represent the saints in their heavenly condition, but not as the church, Christ's body. They are "kings and priests." In this chapter we see them as kings; in the next as priests. The one is their kingly office, the other is their priestly character as worshippers. The moment God is going to deal with creation, the saints are seen sitting on the throne with Him. What a wonderful place is given to us! We are a "royal priesthood," etc. We do not belong to this creation, but are a kind of first-fruits of His creatures. The glory and profit is all His, though the blessing is ours. We have a special place of glory, "heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ"; but that is not all, we must be His bride. In Colossians we have both First-born of every creature as the heir of God's estate, and beside that, He is first-begotten from the dead. He is Head of the new creation. He has come up from among the dead in the power of that life which could not be holden of death. In Ephesians there is another thing: "He gave him to be head over all things to the church." All things are His, and He is Head over them to the body. Not Head over the body (though He does judge it), and therefore it is added that the church is the "fulness of him that filleth all in all." The head without the body would be incomplete, and the church makes up His completeness. We are completely associated with Him. We are not of the old creation, but of the new. It is true we are still in the body, and have to carry it about with us in the bondage of corruption. We are part of the new creation as being one with Him who filleth all in all; while, looked at individually, we have the character of "kings and priests." Here we see all the saints who will be raised, sitting round the throne of God; round the very place from whence proceed the thunderings, etc.