Filled Unto the Fullness of God
“That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:16-19
One phrase in the passage immediately brings question and skepticism for me: “that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:19). I think, “How is this even possible or attainable?” Do you have the similar thoughts when reading this?
The Fullness of God
Filled up to all the fullness of God is to say, filled unto the fullness of God. So, when we are filled “unto the fullness,” it means that we are filled to our maximum capacity, or filled to the measure.
This filling comes from the “fullness of God.” God is characterized by fullness and, so, we are filled by a God who is full. John 1:16 states, “For from His fullness, we have all received grace upon grace.” This meaning is amplified when considered in light of the day’s heresy of gnosticism that Paul likely had in mind when writing.
The gnostics emphasized that there is some “special fullness” of knowledge that allows someone to pass through the “spheres of angels into heaven.” Paul responds that Christian do want to be filled with fullness. But, contrary to what the gnostics believed, it is not a mysterious, special knowledge that is our fullness.
Rather, the mystery of the fullness of knowledge and manifold wisdom of God has been made known in Christ. And that is what the preceding verses in Ephesians teach. Ephesians 3:3 states: “there was made known to me the mystery.” Later in verse ten, Paul continues that he was given the purpose of preaching to the Gentiles “so that the manifold wisdom of God” might be made known. And then in Colossians 2:9-10, we see this word “fullness” again: “For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, and in Him you have been made complete.” Because God is now known and revealed in Christ, the fullness of Deity in bodily form, we who are also in the body here on earth are completed only in Christ.
Fullness Is for Us
So, allow me to revisit this prayer: “That [God] would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.”
Commentator A. T. Robertson remarks, what a “sublime climax” to Paul’s prayer! We find similar words in 2 Peter 2:14: “He has given us His precious and magnificent promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature”
Again, incredible. Partakers of the divine nature!
This magnificence, this fullness, and this partaking are for us. We can be filled to our maximum capacity with God, partake of His nature, and be full just like He is full.
Now, how is this attainable; how does this fullness come? By attending to the passage, we understand:
According to the riches of His glory.
By the power of the Spirit.
Through faith that we have been given in Christ—a gift—by which Christ is truly within us through His Spirit.
He has established us as Christians through loving us. So, it comes through a comprehension of His love through the Word, Christ. And then, it comes through knowing and experiencing that His love surpasses knowledge by the power of the Spirit. To understand God’s power is to know that nothing He has set out to do can possibly be stopped for us whom He has chosen in love.
His glory.
His power.
His gift of faith.
His love.
Comprehension of His love, a love that is beyond comprehension. It is completely unfathomable.
Paul is saying, ” Don’t miss this and don’t let your mind be steered away from this.” Attend to this knowledge of God’s love. See what He has done. And then experience, again, that it is beyond understanding.
The fullness of God’s love is reserved for those whom He has, of His good pleasure and sovereign decision, chosen to know Him. He has set us apart in love. He has foreknown us, which connotes an intimate knowledge. So, He has “fore-loved” us. He has called us: hell-bound sinners, His enemies, and those who chose Him not, because of no merit of our own. I submit to you that to understand God’s love is to not understand it at all.
Regularly on our minds and hearts are the realities and effect:
Grief
Lost sinners
A dying world
A wayward people
This to be always on our minds…
His sovereign decision of love for us, the saints.
Being Emptied, Being Filled
If God is characterized by being full, then we are characterized by needing to be filled. We are always going to need to be filled. This happens more when we have been emptied of more, creating a greater capacity. We are emptied of the vain theories of life that we might devise or have assimilated from the world, like the recipients of Paul’s message needed to be emptied of gnostic tendencies.
We have all known a different kind of emptying too. We love our little ones who have gone ahead and we miss them terribly. Thankfully, God never asks us to choose the direction for our lives or to retrospectively weigh what He has brought. This is what we know: His sovereign decision and His love for us, the saints. We have been emptied. And we have known what it is to be filled in a particular way that is impossible without having had this earthly loss. How good to know the Lord more fully!
And now, I don’t want to stop being emptied. I don’t want anything in the past to be esteemed as my deepest stretch of time with the Lord. I want to keep going. Let’s keep going even deeper.
Filled to all the fullness of God.
We’ll never out-do in our capacity for Him what He can give of His fullness. May we comprehend with all the saints, all together, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and know this love of Christ which surpasses knowledge.
He has moved history, become a servant, suffering Savior, so that you, whom He fore-loved, would know Him and so that you, whom He chose, would comprehend in unison with all who believe the reaches and surpassing measures of His full and filling love.
This post originally appeared on the blog on May 26, 2016
- Lianna
Hope Mom to Noelle
Lianna (@liannadavis) is wed to Tyler and mom of two dear daughters. She is author of Made for a Different Land: Eternal Hope for Baby Loss (Hope Mommies, 2019). More of her writing can be found at her website.
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