If you will turn with me to some Scriptures in the New Testament, in the Ephesian letter, Chapter 3, from verse 14.
Ephesians 3:14:
For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father,
from Whom the whole family in heaven and on earth is named,
that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory,
that ye may be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inward man;
that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith;
to the end that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,
may be strong to apprehend with all the saints
what is the breadth, and length, and height, and depth,
and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge,
that ye may be filled unto all the fullness of God.Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think,
according to the power that worketh in us,
unto Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus
unto all generations for ever and ever. Amen.
Ephesians 4:13:
Till we all attain unto the unity of the faith,
and of the knowledge of the Son of God,
unto a full-grown man,
unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
Will you turn to Colossians, the Colossian letter, Chapter 1, from verse 12.
Colossians 1:12-23:
Giving thanks unto the Father, Who made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light;
Who delivered us out of the power of darkness,
and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love;
in Whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins;
Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.For in Him were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth,
things visible and things invisible,
whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers;
all things have been created through Him, and unto Him;
and He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.And He is the head of the body, the church;
Who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,
that in all things He might have the preeminence.
For it was the good pleasure of the Father
that in Him should all the fullness dwell;
and through Him to reconcile all things unto Himself,
having made peace through the blood of His cross;
through Him, I say, whether things upon the earth, or things in the heavens.And you, being in time past alienated and enemies in your mind in your evil works,
yet now hath He reconciled in the body of His flesh through death,
to present you holy and without blemish and unreprovable before Him,
if so be that ye continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast,
and not moved away from the hope of the gospel which ye heard,
which was preached in all creation under heaven;
whereof I Paul was made a minister.
And lastly, in Colossians 2:8-10:
Take heed lest there shall be anyone that maketh a spoil of you
through his philosophy and vain deceit,
after the tradition of men,
after the rudiments of the world,
and not after Christ.For in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily,
and in Him ye are made full,
Who is the head of all principality and power.
We will just have a word of prayer.
Heavenly Father, we are so thankful that when we come into Your presence, as we have this evening, to worship You and to glorify You, and as we come to the ministry of Your Word, You have not left us to ourselves. You have provided us specifically with an anointing for both the speaking and the hearing this evening.
And, Lord, we want to recognize that whilst we can say a lot of things, we can preach a sermon, and we can outline truths using a lot of words, and we can hear all those things, unless You are the power and ability of both the speaking and of our hearing, it will all be to no avail.
Lord, deliver, we pray, this time from any vanity. Redeem it, Lord, we pray, in every part. We come by faith under that anointing, that You will take my lips and mind and heart, and use them to communicate Your burden and Your truth.
And, Lord, cause that not only our physical ears may hear, but the ear of our spirit, that we may hear what You have to say to us. We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
The theme of this conference this year is pressing on to fullness—the fullness of Christ and our pressing on into that fullness. And my responsibility is the epistles. That is all the letters from Romans to Jude.
That is quite a portion of the New Testament that has been given to me. And I do not have to point out to you that these letters are vital and foundational. We are not dealing with parables. We are not dealing with historical incidents which have something to say to us, but upon which it would be dangerous to build doctrines. We are not dealing with allegories or visions and such.
We are dealing with straightforward, clear-cut, foundational, and essential teaching. So, when we reach the letters of the New Testament, we have come, as it were, to the foundation of everything. We have come to the final, in one sense, explanation and interpretation of all that we have in the Gospels, of all that we find in the book of Acts, and of all that we shall see in the book of Revelation.
It is in these letters that we come to the heart of the matter as far as interpretation and foundation go.
I think one of the other brothers really should have been speaking on these epistles and not me, but the lot fell on me. It is a vast subject. There are many, many ways we could approach it.
I could take the letters separately, taking the lesson or message of each letter and relating it to this whole matter of fullness. I felt it would be much better to talk about these letters in general and to see something of what they have to say to us about the fullness of the Lord Jesus and our pressing on into that fullness.
And so, the first thing I want to underline this evening is the greatness of the calling and destiny of the child of God—the greatness of the calling and destiny of the child of God.
My word, in Christian circles we have reduced this matter of the calling of the Christian, the calling of the child of God and his destiny, to something very, very small. When you really think of it, Christian lives are amongst the most drab and routine in the whole world. Our meetings are invariably dull, and we are by nature rather dull ourselves.
The problem is because we have not seen our calling. If we had horizons, if we had heavenly vision, if we had the eyes of our hearts opened to know what is our calling, or what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints are, I think it would change our whole lives.
There would be nothing drab about them, and nothing drab about our meetings. The most humdrum meeting, the most ordinary chore, would be gilded with a glory it never had before.
But sadly, we have reduced the gospel to a question merely of our sins being forgiven. And if we are very devoted, we go a little further. We not only study the Bible, have a quiet time, and witness; if we are extremely zealous, we even go into deeper things. We might even have an experience of the Holy Spirit. We might go into some discovery of the Lord Jesus.
But nobody thinks about the calling or the destiny of the child of God. Somehow or other, we think that one day we are going to sit in some extraordinary city that has gates of pearl and streets of gold. And what we are going to do in this city, nobody ever tells us.
Apparently, we are going to be in this eternal choir, where we sing for ever and ever and ever, and play harps—even those of us who are not musical down here—for ever and ever, as if God Himself is so boring that He would only be satisfied with an eternal choir.
This is what He created the universe for? He is so self-centred, so incredibly interested only in Himself, that He created the whole universe and you and me simply to sort of drape the halls of heaven and sing hallelujahs from morning to night—and since there is no night, for ever and ever.
Can you imagine? Can you imagine anything more, in one sense, dreadful?
We were created. Even those of us who have reduced and devalued ourselves to little primeval blobs, we have all been created in the image of God. Within us is an essential creativeness, which means that the human being—the true human being—can never be satisfied with humdrum routine, always reaching out for something more, always seeking to create something more.
To imagine that you and I could spend all of eternity simply singing the same song, however wonderful our Lord is, is to devalue our Lord Himself. It is to devalue the whole gospel.
It is because we have reduced this gospel of our Lord Jesus, this counsel of God, to a kind of—if you understand what I mean—Sunday-school mentality, that we and our meetings are so drab, so colourless, so characterless.
Our calling and our destiny as children of God, born of the Spirit of God and saved by the grace of God, is tremendous in its significance. It is magnificent in its scope.
God has called us to nothing less than being filled unto all the fullness of God.
Now, if the Bible did not say that, I would suggest to you that it would be near blasphemy. How can created, finite beings ever be filled unto all the fullness of God? Even if there are millions and millions and millions of us, still God is greater. How can we be filled unto all the fullness of God?
And yet, that is our calling.
Listen to those wonderful words that we read together earlier, when the apostle says:
That ye may be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inward man;
that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith;
to the end that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be strong.
Oh, how we need it—strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length, the height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which passes all knowledge, that ye may be filled unto all the fullness of God.
Can you imagine what that means? It is mind-blowing.
To be filled unto all the fullness of God surely means filled with the fullness of life, filled with the fullness of peace, filled with the fullness of power, filled with the fullness of wisdom, filled with the fullness of joy, filled with the fullness of grace, filled with the fullness of humility, filled with the fullness of compassion, filled with the fullness of truth, filled with the fullness of righteousness—and so we could go on and on and on.
Filled unto all the fullness of God. Does it not make you feel the need to be stretched?
We are so small. Our capacity is so tiny. Some of us have only to start listening to this and we think, “I do not know what he is talking about. What does it all mean?” We have such a tiny capacity.
Especially in Anglo-Saxon Christianity, we have developed such a small little capacity for understanding this question that somehow or other we just cannot take it in. And yet, listen to this: God’s whole purpose in creating you was that in the end you might be filled unto all His fullness.
He does not want you as a trophy on the wall. You know, when you go to these wonderful great homes sometimes in Britain—you see, I do not know about the States—but in Britain you see these wonderful heads of animals all on the walls: a rhino here, a tiger here, a lion over there, a few poor little gazelles and deer here, and an antelope up there.
And I sometimes imagine that some Christians think that is what God wants in the halls of heaven. He wants all these heads of believers all stuck up on the wall. You can just say, “I shot this one at so-and-so, and that one I had a real job getting, but I got him.”
That is the kind of idea: trophies of grace, all adorning the walls of heaven, inanimate, somehow just stuck there. They reveal the prowess, cleverness, power, and ingenuity of God.
But, my dear friends, to be filled unto all His fullness is something organic, something living, something fluid, something creative. It means that somehow or other God wants to do something with you and with me in the ages to come that we do not as yet even understand.
So this calling and destiny of the child of God is tremendous.
I think of these wonderful words also in the same letter of Ephesians, in Ephesians 4:13:
Till we all attain unto the unity of the faith,
and of the full knowledge of the Son of God,
unto a full-grown man,
unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
Now, when you just think for a moment how wonderful it is—the fullness of Christ, the stature of the fullness of Christ, the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ—till we all attain to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
This is the greatness of our calling. This is the greatness of our destiny. The Lord Jesus is bringing many sons unto glory. He does not just want to bring Himself, as it were; He wants to bring many sons unto glory.
He wants to bring us, as it were, by His finished work, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to the place where we come to a full knowledge of Him, of the Son of God; till we come to full growth, a mature manhood in Him; till we come to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
God wants us all to be Christlike. He wants us all to be like the Lamb. He wants to conform us all to the image of His Son.
Now, when you begin to understand this, then this whole matter of the fullness of Christ and pressing on into this fullness takes on a new meaning.
I want you to consider a few other marvellous things, if this is not too much for you already. This matter I just mentioned, about being conformed to the image of God’s Son—just look at a few Scriptures with me. See this matter of fullness in them.
I am going to confine myself absolutely, precisely, and correctly to the epistles. I will not go out, tempted as I am, to go elsewhere.
Romans 8:29:
For whom He foreknew, He also foreordained
to be conformed to the image of His Son,
that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Now, is that not wonderful? I do not know if you believe in predestination; I do. It shocks people always whenever I say that. I believe in predestination. I certainly believe in this kind of predestination.
It says here, whom He foreknew, those He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son—predestined to be conformed to the image of God’s Son.
If God has saved you, He has a predestined plan for you, a predestined goal for you, a predestined end for you. What is that predestined end? It is that you might end up exactly like His Son.
You might be conformed to His Son. The beauty of the Lord Jesus may be seen in you. The nature of the Lord Jesus may be seen in you. The character of the Lord Jesus may be seen in you. The life of the Lord Jesus may be seen in you. The grace of the Lord Jesus may be seen in you.
This is the predestined end that God has for every child of God. It is another way of saying, “Being filled unto all the fullness of God.” It is another way of saying, “Till we all attain unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ”—conformed to His image.
Oh, I am so glad that this business is not in the hands of some theological seminary, or some ecclesiastical committee, or even a committee set up by us here.
I am sure that most of us would give up. I would. I must tell you that, looking at you all, I would give up. I persevered with you whilst I did not know you, but as soon as I got to know you—as you might get to know me—I would say, “They are no good. Too difficult. The material is too difficult, too rebellious, too contradictory, too resistant. I will find better material elsewhere.”
This is what most of us do in fellowship. We flee from fellowship to fellowship, ever learning and never coming to a knowledge of the truth.
But God perseveres. One of the most wonderful things about the Jewish people is that God has never given them up. In spite of what the church has often said—“God forsook them; God rejected them”—He never did, neither forsook them nor rejected them. They are the illustration of the election of God.
And so it is with you and with me. If you are a child of God, if God has saved you, if He has come to you, He will never give you up.
It is the most terrible thing to be loved by the Lord, as well as the most marvellous thing. It is marvellous because who could believe that God, the infinite God, should love you or me?
He knew all the difficulties. It is not as if God woke up one morning and said, “Oh, if I had only known about so-and-so, I would never have saved them in the first place.”
I mean, when God saved you, your whole life was an open book. All your weaknesses, all your thoughts, all your sins, all your rebellions, all your murmurings, all the difficulties in your life—every single thing was like an open book. But still He loved you, and still He saved you, with a full knowledge of how difficult you would be.
And I say it is a terrible thing to be loved by the Lord because, not only is it marvellous, but in this sense it is terrible: once God loves you, He will get you.
He may wait a long time, but He will get you in the end. If He has to reduce your circumstances, if He has to bring situations into your life, if He has to wreck every single thing around you, He will corner you in there. Make no mistake about it: it is a terrible thing to be loved by the Lord.
Because He will wait until, in the end, He gets you. And He will go to the most incredible lengths to get you.
You may lose a lot on the way, but in the end God will still get you. That is the nature of the love of God: to know the love of Christ which passes understanding.
No, my dear friends, if God has saved you, He has a predestined purpose for you, and He means to fulfil it. That end is to conform you to the image of His Son. Nothing else is going through to the kingdom.
All that old man and old woman is to be left behind. All that belongs to the old nature, the old creation, has to be left behind. It is only what is born of God in you, only what is the product of the Spirit of God in your life, that is forever.
So this being called to be conformed to the image of God’s Son answers the whole question of being filled unto all the fullness of God. How else can you and I experience the fullness of God? How else can you and I appreciate the fullness of God? Only as we are conformed to the image of God’s Son. No other way.
I think of some other wonderful Scriptures. If you want to turn still within the epistles, to 2 Corinthians 3:18:
But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord,
are transformed into the same image from glory to glory,
even as from the Lord the Spirit.
Is that not wonderful? It does not talk about one day after death. This is now. As we see the Lord, as we get rid of the veils over our face and mind, as we are ready for God to have deep and hard dealings with us, as we behold Him with unveiled face, we are changed into the same image from glory to glory.
And it is the work of the Holy Spirit. Never be afraid of the Holy Spirit. He is the custodian of all God’s work. He is the One Who is here as the guardian of God’s interests. He is the One Who alone can conform you to the image of God’s Son. He is the only One Who can bring you to the fullness of God. Do not be afraid of the Holy Spirit.
Or again, to take another letter, just so we do not get too Pauline, 1 John 3:2:
Beloved, now are we children of God,
and it is not yet made manifest what we shall be.
We know that, if He shall be manifested,
we shall be like Him;
for we shall see Him even as He is.
Is that not a wonderful statement of God’s Word to consider? We do not know what we shall be. We are children of God now, and we are going to continue being children of God, but what the Lord’s end is we do not know—except that we are going to be like the Lord Jesus, conformed to the image of God’s Son.
I say, the greatness of this calling. Oh, it is wonderful—the greatness of the calling and destiny of the child of God.
Consider it in another way, will you? Now go to one of the letters of Peter: 1 Peter 5:10.
And the God of all grace,
Who called you unto His eternal glory in Christ Jesus,
after that ye have suffered a little while,
shall Himself perfect, establish, strengthen you.
To Him be the dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
I think this is one of the most wonderful verses in the Word of God. Called to what? Called to God’s eternal glory. Where? In Christ Jesus.
Not called to some eternal glory apart from the Lord Jesus, or beside the Lord Jesus. Even with the Lord Jesus, that would be wonderful; but in the Lord Jesus—called to God’s eternal glory in Christ Jesus.
Here you are. It is another way of saying, “Till we all attain unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” God’s eternal glory in Christ.
God started all over again with this universe. He started all over again with the Lord Jesus. He is the head of a new man. He is the new man with a new creation, and one day there will be a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwells righteousness.
God has started all over again with the Lord Jesus. And if you and I have been saved, then we are in that new creation, part of that new man, being conformed to the image of God’s Christ, God’s Messiah.
Now, dear friends, I find this so wonderful the more I think about it. What is glory? Some people think of glory as having medals pinned on your chest, trumpets and vast bands, and the president pinning something on your chest while you puff out your chest and feel very good about it.
In Britain, they would play “Land of Hope and Glory,” and the Queen would put a medal on your chest. Well, that is not really glory in the Bible sense. Glory is a very hard term to understand in the Word of God.
I am very sorry that in one of the modern versions they translate it by “splendour.” It just is not the same. Better to leave the old word, “glory,” and let the Holy Spirit reveal to you what it is.
But glory is the manifested presence of God. So really what we are saying is this: “And the God of all grace, Who called you to His manifested presence in Christ Jesus.”
Is that not marvellous? Think about it.
I will give you a few more Scriptures. Keep in the epistles. Romans 9:23:
And that He might make known the riches of His glory
upon vessels of mercy,
which He afore prepared unto glory,
even us, whom He also called,
not from the Jews only,
but also from the Gentiles.
Oh, what a wonderful word: vessels of mercy, afore prepared unto glory. I do not know whether you realize that you are a vessel of mercy. Are you saved? Are you a child of God? You are a vessel of mercy.
And God prepared you as a vessel of mercy before you were even born—long before your pedigree ever began, before your genetic history began in your forebears. God prepared you as a vessel of mercy. What for? For His glory.
This is the same thing all over again: that we might be filled unto all the fullness of God.
Take another Scripture, 2 Thessalonians 1:10:
When He shall come to be glorified in His saints,
and to be marvelled at in all them that believe.
I have always loved this word. Can you imagine it? Some of us are such uninteresting people, so insignificant, such little people, such small lives. We have no claim to greatness, no claim to glory, no claim to being known by the world. We are just very ordinary small people.
But there is going to come a day that, if God has done something in your life—however humdrum, however insignificant it may seem to you, however small it may seem to you—if God has done a work in your life and conformed you in this short span of time to the image of His Son, then He is going to be marvelled at in you.
Just like some of us go to museums and marvel at things. I am not saying that you will be a museum piece. But sometimes we go to museums and see something, and we marvel at it: the beauty of it, the work, the technique, everything about it. It makes us marvel.
Well, there is going to come a day when the whole creation, the whole universe, will marvel at what God has done in your life. They will marvel not at you, but they will marvel at the Lord Jesus in you.
It will be the Lord Jesus in a unique expression, and that unique expression is you. He will have done something so amazing in your life that it will be precisely only you who reveal that aspect of the Lord Jesus. Angels will nudge one another and say, “Look at that. Look at that.”
Do you ever believe that? I sometimes wonder about the angels. Since they are created beings of supreme intelligence, they must sometimes say to each other, “I wonder why He perseveres with them.”
“I was sent down to help so-and-so, and what a mess she has got herself into. The whole church has counselled her. So-and-so has told her, ‘You ought to have this kind of advice,’ and then she never takes it. They did their terrible best. Who told me to go down and minister to her because she is an heir of salvation?”
I sometimes wonder why the Lord does not give these folks up and start all over again. I am sure sometimes the angels must wonder. But there will come a day when the angels will marvel at Christ in these same people and say, “Well, He is justified in all His works. He, and He alone, could have done this.”
And, my dear friend, He can only do it in human beings. Not even in the angels can He do this kind of work He is doing in you and in me—when He comes to be glorified in all the saints and marvelled at in all them that believe.
It reminds me of an old saying that I used to hear when I was a boy: whenever a masterpiece is being worked, whether it is a painting or interior designing, keep old people, children, and animals out of the house.
Because children will always ask a thousand and one questions all the time, and trip up over things, and make a great mess. Old folk are very much the same, because they all tell you that you should do it another way: “Why are you doing it this way? It is much better to do it that way.” You cannot get on with the job.
And animals—well, you all know what animals are. Cats get in the paint, dogs trip over something, and they walk off with something else. Keep them all out.
I sometimes guess how the Lord feels when He is doing a work in your life: “Keep everybody out of the way. Keep them all out—the young, the old, and the animals. Keep them all out till I finish the work.”
And then, one day, when the veil is taken away, suddenly everybody sees the work: all that God has done in your life, all that the Spirit of the Lord has persevered over in your life, finally revealed. A work of art—whatever.
Well, I love this: called to His eternal glory. Or then consider it in yet another way: called to be heirs of God. Have you ever thought of that?
This is all to do with being filled unto all the fullness of God—called to be heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ. Look at Romans 8:17:
And if children, then heirs;
heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ;
if so be that we suffer with Him,
that we may also be glorified with Him.
Heirs of God, joint-heirs with Christ. What a marvellous thought. Has it ever sunk into you? You are an heir.
I do not know if any of you are heirs of anything. I mean, if you have got a fortune coming to you, please let me know. I would like to stick close to you.
But the fact of the matter is, most of us are not. Can you imagine if we knew that we had a great inheritance coming to us? We would be so excited. “One day all that is going to come to me.” We would think, “What will I do with it? How will I use it? How will I administer it?”
But every child of God, if he or she will only allow the Lord to do the work in them, in their situations and circumstances down here in this short span of time given to us, every child of God is an heir of everything that belongs to God, and a joint-heir with Christ.
Let me put it this way: everything the Lord Jesus is going to inherit in the ages to come, you are going to share. You are a joint-heir with Christ. Think of it.
Galatians 4:7:
So that thou art no longer a bondservant, but a son;
and if a son, then an heir through God.
Again, another marvellous word, in 1 Peter 1:3-5:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Who according to His great mercy begat us again unto a living hope
by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
unto an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled,
and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you,
who by the power of God are guarded through faith
unto a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
Called to be heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ. Oh, just consider the greatness of your calling and your destiny.
You have been called to all the fullness of God. You have been called to be filled unto all the fullness of God. You have been called to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Think of it.
You are destined to be filled unto all the fullness of God. You are destined to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
So it is no wonder to me that when the apostle Paul is writing his letter and dictating it to that faithful secretary of his, he is writing this letter to the church at Ephesus. He has apparently got a chain on his arm. He is dictating it sentence by sentence to this faithful child of God who is scribing it all down.
He suddenly stops and says, “You know, this is marvellous, what the Lord is giving to me for these people, but I am terribly worried about it.”
“Oh,” said the secretary, “really? Why?”
“Well, you know, I am so afraid it is just going to be material for preachers, outlines for theological seminaries. Terrible, that. We have all got such a capacity to put it all up here.”
“Listen, I think we had better have a prayer. Then I can tell them I prayed for them.”
And so he prays. He breaks off the letter—typical Paul—and says, in Ephesians 1:15-23:
For this cause I also, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which is among you,
and the love which ye have toward all the saints,
cease not to give thanks for you,
making mention of you in my prayers;
that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory,
may give unto you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him;
having the eyes of your heart enlightened,
that ye may know what is the hope of His calling,
what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,
and what the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe,
according to the working of the strength of His might
which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead,
and made Him to sit at His right hand in the heavenly places,
far above all rule, and authority, and power, and dominion,
and every name that is named,
not only in this world, but also in that which is to come.And He put all things in subjection under His feet,
and gave Him to be head over all things to the church,
which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all.
No wonder Paul prayed this prayer: “Lord, do not let it be doctrine. Do not let it just be part of a creedal statement. Do not just let it be part of the Bible for them. Lord, get it into them. Lord, get it into them.”
“Help them to know what is the hope of Your calling, what the riches of the glory of Your inheritance in the saints, and what the exceeding greatness of Your power to bring them right through, in the end, to be filled unto all that fullness of God.”
Most of us Christians sing about fullness, pray about fullness, study fullness, and believe in fullness—and hardly anyone experiences it.
To be filled to overflowing with the fullness of God in all our afflictions and tensions and pressures, in all the antagonism of Satan and all the things that are against us in this dark and degenerate world—it is a marvellous thing when we are filled, even to our little capacity, with the fullness of Christ.
Well, dear friends, I must go on. I want to say, consider that the child of God has been called to share the destiny of the Lord Jesus.
Whatever God’s purpose is for the Lord Jesus, that is His purpose for you. Whatever God’s appointed destiny is for the Lord Jesus, that is His appointed destiny for you. Consider it.
Do not let it just remain doctrine. Consider it. Meditate on it. May the Holy Spirit bring it home to you in a way it has never come home to you before.
Then you will begin to understand how God is taking the humdrum routine circumstances of your life, all the inexplicable things, all the things of joy and all the things of sorrow, and using them all to bring you to that place.
I want you also, in the light of this, to understand how necessary it is to recognize the unique greatness of the Lord Jesus.
I get very worried when I hear, in some of our circles—I do not mean necessarily our circles just here, but in the circles of believers, whether evangelical or charismatic, and particularly charismatic—some terms used that I feel are unwise.
Not only charismatic, I must say that. I hear Christians described as “God-men,” and I shudder at it.
It is absolutely right that we have become partakers of the divine nature, that we have been brought to union with God in Christ. But to say we are God-men—wrong. It is to devalue God and to devalue the unique greatness of the Lord Jesus.
There are areas in which the Lord Jesus is unique and will ever remain so throughout the ages to come.
I think of the Colossian letter and the way the apostle speaks there. I think of the way he speaks of the Lord Jesus as being before creation, everything being created through Him and unto Him, and He being, as it were, the holding together of everything.
Colossians 1:16-17:
For in Him were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth,
things visible and things invisible,
whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers;
all things have been created through Him, and unto Him.
And He is before all things,
and in Him all things hold together.
Oh, the unique greatness of the Lord Jesus. That is something you and I can never come to. Things were not created through us and for us in that way. God did not use us to create this universe. God did not use us to create things visible and invisible, and He never will.
This is the unique greatness of the Lord Jesus, and we have to recognize that once and for all.
Then it goes on in Colossians 1:17: “He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together,” which means, as I understand it, that the Lord Jesus is the essential quality or energy that holds the whole universe together.
That is why, when He died on the cross, and when God smote Him, and in that moment He cried out, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” in that moment the earth was shaken with a great earthquake, rocks were split, and the sun went into darkness.
Now, untaught Christians—I sometimes say uneducated Christians—say it was an eclipse. Absolute rubbish. No eclipse can ever last for three hours.
No, something happened to the essential energy that holds together the universe. And when that happened, it was as if everything shattered. The light went into darkness. The earth was shaken.
Oh, the unique greatness of the Lord Jesus. Just think of it. This is the One Who loves you. This is the One Who laid down His life for you. This is the One Who is bringing you to glory—to His glory. This Messiah is the One Who is absolutely unique.
Then again, I think of redemption. It says here in Colossians 1:14, “In Whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins.”
“Who delivered us out of the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.” You and I cannot do that. You and I cannot be redeemers.
This is the unique greatness of the Lord Jesus—the only One Who can redeem. He is the only One capable of being the Redeemer.
And when we read this marvellous word, later on it says, “And you, being in time past alienated and enemies in your mind in your evil works, yet now hath He reconciled in the body of His flesh.” Only the Lord Jesus could do this.
And it says, “To present you holy and without blemish and unreprovable before Him.” Only the Lord Jesus could do this. No one else.
His unique greatness—all the way through the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. We see the Lord Jesus as the Redeemer. We see His redemptive work. We see the scarlet thread of His blood right from Genesis to Revelation.
I think again of this marvellous word in Colossians 1:18:
He is the head of the body, the church,
that in all things He might have the preeminence.
We do not need popes—either Catholic or any other kind. We do not need archbishops. God does not do any other kind.
I do not want to attack anybody. I am just saying that some of them may be very, very godly people, for all I know. Some Protestants can have a shot any time at some popes in the kingdom of God.
But the fact still remains: there is only One Who has the preeminence in all things, and that is the Lord Jesus. And anything—whether it is elders or deacons, apostles or prophets, pastors or teachers, evangelists—if they take the place of the Lord Jesus, then it is an evil.
We have done such a terrible thing in the church of God. We have made such a mess of it: institutionalizing it, traditionalizing it, formalizing it, crystallizing it, immunizing it, and finally killing it.
This is our work. This is the work of the flesh. This is what man does.
But the Lord Jesus, in His unique greatness, has produced this church out of His flesh, as it were. When His side was opened, when there came forth blood and water, the Spirit of the Lord and the blood and the water produced the bride of Christ.
This is His church, produced out of His life, through His salvation, by His grace and His power. This is His church.
Oh, the unique greatness of the Lord Jesus. Every apostle who is a true apostle is but an instrument and a vehicle for the Head of the church. Every prophet who is a true prophet is but a vehicle and an instrument of the Head of the church.
Every true pastor and teacher is but a vehicle for the Head of the church. Every true evangelist is but a vehicle for the Head of the church. Every single member in the body that builds up the body in love is but a vehicle and an instrument under the direction of the Head.
And then I think of the ages to come. Here it is again, in Colossians 1, when it talks about all this matter of fullness:
And through Him to reconcile all things unto Himself,
having made peace through the blood of His cross;
through Him, I say, whether things upon the earth,
or things in the heavens.
Think about that. So it is in the ages to come. It is this marvellous Lord Jesus Who is the One Who has reconciled all things unto Himself.
No wonder it says in Colossians 1:19:
For it was the good pleasure of the Father
that in Him should all the fullness dwell.
Whether it is to do with creation, whether it is to do with redemption, whether it is to do with the church, whether it is to do with the ages to come, it has pleased the Father that in Him should all the fullness dwell. And in this He is unique.
Now, when we recognize the unique greatness of the Lord Jesus, we begin to realize how incredible is our calling to share His destiny. Do you see what I mean?
Once we see and recognize His uniqueness, then we realize there are areas in which we can never be redeemers; we can never be creators in ourselves.
But once we recognize His unique greatness, then it is amazing that He should want to share His destiny with us, that He should have called us, that we should be joint-heirs with Him. He could have done this all alone, you know. But He does not want to be alone. He wants you, and He wants me.
No wonder the letter to the Hebrews speaks of our so great salvation and says, “What will happen to us if we neglect so great salvation?”
This salvation is not just a question of being forgiven. Thank God for that. It is not just a question of being justified. Thank God for that. It is not just a question of being reconciled to God. Thank God for that.
It is a question of discovering and experiencing the fullness of God, of coming to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
Well now, I must wind this up. I want to say one last thing, and then we will leave it for tonight.
This fullness of God is located for us, that we might enter in. Here it is in Colossians again. Keep to these epistles. Colossians 2:9-10:
For in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily,
and in Him ye are made full,
Who is the head of all principality and power.
Now, is this not an amazing word? The fullness of the Godhead is located in the Lord Jesus—Father, Son, Holy Spirit. The fullness of the whole Godhead is located in the Messiah.
It is in Him we touch the fullness of God. In Him we find the fullness of God located. It would be almost blasphemous if it was not said here, but he says the fullness of the Godhead is in Him bodily.
In other words, it is located. It is not just everywhere. You do not know quite where it is. It is either up there in the heavens of heavens, or somewhere in some part of the earth, and you do not know where it is. It is something you cannot get hold of. It is something you cannot touch because you do not know where it is actually located.
You do not know quite how to recognize it. This fullness of the Godhead is located in the Lord Jesus, so we know exactly where it is centred.
I do not want to put it in a kind of irreverent way, but this fullness of the Godhead is found in the Lord Jesus.
Now, that is the first thing. I want you to notice that in Him dwelleth all the fullness bodily. Secondly, will you notice the word “bodily,” or “in bodily form,” as it says in some versions? It means all this fullness of the Godhead is located where? In the Lord Jesus.
Thirdly, will you notice: this fullness means the fullness of God’s life, the fullness of God’s joy, the fullness of God’s power, the fullness of God’s wisdom, the fullness of God’s peace, the fullness of God’s truth, the fullness of God’s righteousness, the fullness of God’s mercy and compassion, the fullness of God’s glory.
It is all in the Lord Jesus, located in the Lord Jesus. Now, is that not marvellous?
You do not have to grope in some foggy spiritual ether to try and find, “Where is this kind of invisible, unknown, unknowable fullness of God?” Do you know the Lord Jesus? Well, if you are saved, surely you know Him. That is where it is—all of it.
Now listen to the last part: “And in Him ye are made full.” You are made complete in Him. You are made full. You are made complete. Think of it.
Oh, I do not know if it sinks into you, but a cry comes into my heart: oh, to make the connection. To make the connection.
It is like an electrical appliance. There is the power, and here is the appliance. Oh, to make the connection.
Oh, the power of God is in Christ. All the wisdom of God is in Christ. All the life of God is in Christ. All the joy of God is in Christ. Everything is in all the fullness.
And here are you; here is the appliance; there is the power. Oh, to make the connection, to break through the barrier of ignorance, or the barrier of unbelief, or the barrier of blindness, or the barrier of sin.
If we could only go over and possess the land, like Joshua and Caleb, who were of another spirit. They did not just see the giants. They did not just see the great walled cities, walled up to heaven. They said, “We are able, because God has given us this land.”
Oh, for a spirit like that, that we could say, “Here is all the fullness of God for me, and God’s Word says that in Him I am made full.”
It does not say the elite in Him are made full. It does not say the very, very, very good in Him are made full. It does not say those who are extremely zealous in Him are made full.
Every child of God in Christ, whatever their condition, can be made full.
This fullness is not something reserved till after death, till the ages to come. We cannot experience all the fullness of God now; that is impossible. But, my dear friend, we are to be made full now, in this little life.
There is one very interesting thing here as I finish. It is this mention: “And in Him ye are made full, Who is the head of all principality and power.” Is that not interesting? Why does that come in there?
I suggest it is because there are principalities and powers that will do every single thing in their power to stop you from coming into that fullness.
And if you try to battle with them on your own, you will be worsted by them. You will be defeated by them. You will, in the end, be disappointed and disillusioned.
But if you recognize that Jesus is the Head over all principality and power, that He has already won that victory and defeated them at Calvary, then you can enter into your own fullness in Him.
It is interesting that it is exactly the same in Ephesians 1. Exactly the same. When it speaks about the exceeding greatness of His power, it then goes on almost immediately to say, “All things have been placed in subjection under His feet, and He has been given to be Head over all things to the church, which is the fullness of Him Who fills all in all.”
As if, if you and I do not take Christ as the Head over all these things, all these things being under His feet, we will never come into that fullness. We will never experience it because those powers of darkness and evil will make sure that there are obstacles in the way that will be so magnified in our minds—like cities walled up to heaven, giants in the land—we will never be able to take it.
Dear child of God, there is no giant that the Lord Jesus has not defeated at Calvary, and there is no walled city whose walls will not fall flat at the Word of God through the finished work of the Lord Jesus.
So there is no reason why you and I should not enter in and begin to experience what it is to be made full in Him.
May God bless you.
Every fellowship represented in this place would be transformed if you and I were to start to enter into the fullness of the Lord Jesus. Can you imagine the effect on our fellowships, on our brothers and sisters?
Instead of being some dreary, drab, humdrum little creature that floats in and has to be ministered to, around whom the whole fellowship has to go like a whirlpool, you suddenly became a centre of life and joy and understanding and encouragement.
Somehow you had something of the Lord Jesus to give. Would that not be marvellous?
Well, let us pray together, shall we?
Dear Lord, we want just very simply to ask that You would give to us that spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus.
Lord, translate all this out of our heads and into our hearts and lives. Dear Lord, we need to know You in a deeper and fuller way, and we are living in days of growing darkness and much uncertainty and instability.
Dear Lord, will You do a work through Your Word tonight, somehow making it real to every one of us? Pursue us with this Word, Lord. We cannot be the same.
Where You have called us, Lord, we marvel at it—to such a destiny. O Lord, may faith be kindled in every one of us to enter in, this night, to more of what is ours in the Lord Jesus.
Spirit of the Lord, work in every one of our hearts and lives, watching over Your Word through these days to perform it.
And we ask all this in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.