Fulness

Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament

The word to be considered is pleroma (πλήρωμα). Nouns of the μα termination properly denote the result of the action signified by the cognate verb; and therefore πλήρωμα (from πληροῦν = ‘to fill,’ or, metaphorically, ‘to fulfil’) primarily means that which possesses its full content, an entire set or series, a completed whole regarded in its relation to its component parts, or in contrast with a previous deficiency of any of these parts. The full crew of a ship or ‘strength’ of a regiment is a pleroma; the soul becomes a ‘pleroma of virtues by means of those three excellent things, nature, learning, and practice’ (Philo, de Prœmiis et Pœnis , 11).

This is the sense in  Galatians 4:4 : ‘when the fulness of the time came,’ i.e. when the entire measure of the appointed period had been filled up by the lapse of successive ages. So the ‘fulness’ of the Jews ( Romans 11:12) and of the Gentiles ( Romans 11:25) is the full complement, the entire number contemplated (however determined-by predestination or otherwise). Lightfoot in his classical discussion of the word (see Literature) denies any other than this passive sense; but his argument is far from convincing. When we think of a pitcherful of water, we may regard the water as a completed entity, which by successive additions has reached its full quantity and become a pleroma of water; but much more naturally we think of it as that which fills the pitcher, and is pleroma. This active sense must be accented in  Matthew 9:16,  Mark 2:21, where τὸ πλήρωμα can only mean the patch that fills the hole in the worn-out garment; in  Mark 8:20, where σπνρίδων πληρώματα inevitably means ‘basketfuls’; in  1 Corinthians 10:26, where ‘the earth and the pleroma thereof’ cannot be made to signify anything else than ‘the earth and all that it contains,’ the abundance that fills it. So also in  Romans 13:10, ‘love is the pleroma of the law,’ the context (‘he that loveth his neighbour has fulfilled the law’) shows that pleroma is not to be taken passively, as the law in its completeness; but actively, as that which fills up the whole measure of the law’s demands.

The use of the word as a theological term is confined in the NT to those closely related writings, Colossians, Ephesians, and the Fourth Gospel. In  Colossians 1:19 it is predicated of Christ that ‘it pleased the Father that in him the whole pleroma should dwell,’ and in  Colossians 2:9, with greater precision of statement, ‘in him dwelleth the whole pleroma of the Godhead in a bodily fashion’ (cf.  John 1:14). Here the meaning of the word is beyond dispute. All that God is is in Christ; the organic whole of Divine attributes and powers that constitute Deity (θεότης) dwells permanently in Him.

The term with such an application is a startling novelty in NT phraseology, and is an instructive example of the hospitality of early Christian thought, of the promptitude with which it appropriated from its complex intellectual and religious environment such categories as it could convert to its own use. Since the connotation of the word is assumed to be familiar to the Apostle’s readers, it is evident that it must have played an important part in the speculations of the Colossian heresy, as it did also in the Hermetic theology (R. Reitzenstein, Poimandres , 1904, p. 26). In the developed Gnostic systems of the 2nd cent., and especially in the scheme of Valentinus, the conception of the Pleroma became increasingly prominent, as signifying the totality of the Divine emanations. But for a full account of the Gnostic usage, the reader is referred to Lightfoot’s exhaustive note (see Literature) or, in briefer compass, to the articles ‘Pleroma’ in Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) and ‘Fulness’ in Dict. of Christ and the Gospels .

The problem with which religious thought was wrestling, as for centuries it had done and was still to do, was how to relate the transcendent God to the existent universe, to effect a transition from eternal spirit to the material or phenomenal, from the absolutely good to the imperfect and evil. And in Colossae the solution was sought not in a Gnostic series of emanations, but, on the lines of Judaistic speculation, in a hierarchy of ‘principalities,’ ‘dominions,’ and ‘powers,’ the στοιχεῖα who ruled the physical elements and the lower world, among whom the Divine Pleroma was, as it were, distributed, and to whose generally hostile rule men were continually subject. Against this doctrine, without denying the existence and activity of such beings, St. Paul lifts up his magnificent truth of the ‘Cosmic Christ’ and his vision of a ‘Christianized universe.’ Christ is not one of a series of mediators; in Him the whole Pleroma dwells. He is not only Head of the Church, but Head over all things, delivering His people from bondage to the hostile elements, and translating them into His own Kingdom, that new cosmic order in which God will finally reconcile all things unto Himself.

In Ephesians the emphasis is not so much upon Christ’s possession of the Divine Pleroma as upon His communication of it to the Church. The Church is His Body, ‘the pleroma of him that filleth all in all’ ( Ephesians 1:23; for exegetical details, see Armitage Robinson in loc .). Whether πλήρωμα be understood in an active sense (the Church is Christ’s complement, that by which He is completed as the head is by the body) or in a passive sense (the Church is Christ’s fulness, because His fulness is imparted to it and dwells in it), the result is practically the same-the one sense implies the other. The Church is the living receptacle and instrument of all that is in Christ, all grace and truth, all purpose and power. But the ideal character thus claimed for the Church is yet to be achieved in the sphere of human aspiration and effort. Its rich diversity of gifts and ministries is bestowed for this very end, that ‘we all’ may be brought to that unity and many-sided completeness of spiritual life in which we shall collectively form a ‘perfect man,’ attaining thus to the ‘measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ’ ( Ephesians 4:13). And, as in the Apostle’s thought the fulness of the Godhead descends through the One Mediator to the Church, so again it ascends through Him to the first creative source. The end of all prayer and of all attainment is ‘that we may be filled unto all the fulness of God’ ( Ephesians 3:19). The Church, redeemed humanity in its vital spiritual unity, grown at last to a ‘perfect man,’ to the ‘fulness of Christ,’ which is the ‘fulness of God’; God thus possessing in man the fulfilment of His eternal purpose, His perfect image, the consummate organ of His Spirit-even this is possible to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think ( Ephesians 3:20).

Literature.-articles ‘Pleroma’ in Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) , ‘Fulness’ in Dict. of Christ and the Gospels  ; C. F. A. Fritzsche, Pauli ad Romanos Epistola , 1836-43, ii. 469ff.; J. B. Lightfoot, Colossians 3, 1879, p. 257f.; J. Armitage Robinson, Ephesians , 1903, p. 255ff.; H. A. W. Meyer, Commentary on the NT , ‘Philippians and Colossians,’ 1875, ‘Ephesians and Philemon,’ 1880; Erich Haupt.; Die Gefangenschaftsbriefe 7 in Meyer’s Kommentar zum NT , 1902; D. Somerville, St. Paul’s Conception of Christ , 1897, p. 156ff.; J. Denney, Jesus and the Gospel , 1908, p. 29ff.; M. Dibelins, Die Geisterwelt im Glauben des Paulus , 1909; W. Bousset, Hauptprobleme der Gnosis , 1907, p. 267.

Robert Law.

Hawker's Poor Man's Concordance And Dictionary

Full, Fulness

These expressions, when spoken in Scripture with an eye to the Lord Jesus Christ, imply more than language can convey, or the imagination conceive. Jesus Christ, as the glorious Head of his body the church, is the fulness that filleth all in all. So the apostle speaks,  Ephesians 1:23. And in the same Epistle he saith, speaking of Christ, "that he ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things." ( Ephesians 4:10) But when we have read those expressions, and pondered them to the utmost, What adequate conception have we of their meaning? So again, when it is said, that "in him dwelleth all the fulness of the GODHEAD bodily:" ( Colossians 2:9) who shall undertake to say what that is? Not Jehovah dwelling in the God-man Christ Jesus, by filling that nature with grace and glory, as the Lord Jesus by his holy Spirit dwells in the saints, and fills their hearts, and unites himself to them, and they to him, by grace here, and glory above. Not thus; but the GODHEAD dwells in Christ Jesus, and fills that nature of Christ Jesus in a personal bodily union; as fire fills the iron substantially that is in it, so that it becomes itself fire from that union. Who shall go farther, and determine what this is?

And what endears all these precious views of our Lord in his fulness is, the interest his redeemed have in it. The apostle adds to this account of the GODHEAD in his fulness dwelling in Christ bodily, "and ye are complete in him." Here is the blessedness of the whole, as it concerns our happiness, and security, and glory in him. Hence the church is called "the glory of Christ." ( 2 Corinthians 8:23) And so the church is; for it is, indeed, Christ's glory, to give out of his fulness to his body the church, as the glorious Head of the church. And although his own personal glory is in himself, and to himself, in the GODHEAD, of his nature and essence, being"one with the Father, over all, God blessed for ever;"yet in his mediatorial glory, as the Head of his body the church, "of his fulness do all the members receive, and grace for grace." And it is the glory of the Lord Jesus to give out, and to make that body glorious like himself, and from himself, to be his glory for ever. Oh! the blessedness of thus beholding the fulness of the Lord Jesus. Oh! what encouragement to the faith of the Lord's poor, needy, empty people. In Jesus's fulness we are full; in Jesus's glory we are glorified; yea, it is Jesus's glory to receive me, to give out to me, and to be more glorious in thus receiving and giving. Hallelujah!

Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary

"The fulness of time" is the time when the Messiah appeared, which was appointed by God, promised to the fathers, foretold by the prophets, expected by the Jews themselves, and earnestly longed for by all the faithful: "When the fulness of the time was come, God sent his Son,"

 Galatians 4:4 . The fulness of Christ is the superabundance of grace with which he was filled: "Of his fulness have all we received,"  John 1:16 . And whereas men are said to be filled with the Holy Ghost, as John the Baptist,  Luke 1:15; and Stephen,  Acts 6:5; this differs from the fulness of Christ in these three respects:

(1.) Grace in others is by participation, as the moon hath her light from the sun, rivers their waters from the fountain: but in Christ all that perfection and influence which we include in that term is originally, naturally, and of himself.

(2.) The Spirit is in Christ infinitely and above measure,   John 3:34; but in the saints by measure according to the gift of God,  Ephesians 4:16 . The saints cannot communicate their graces to others, whereas the gifts of the Spirit are in Christ as a head and fountain, to impart them to his members. "We have received of his fulness,"  John 1:16 . It is said, that "the fulness of the Godhead dwells in Christ bodily,"  Colossians 2:2; that is, the whole nature and attributes of God are in Christ, and that really, essentially, or substantially; and also personally, by nearest union; as the soul dwells in the body, so that the same person who is man is God also. The church is called the fulness of Christ,  Ephesians 1:23 . It is the church which makes him a complete and perfect head; for though he has a natural and personal fulness as God, yet, as Mediator, he is not full and complete, without his mystical body, (as a king is not complete without his subjects,) but receives an outward, relative, and mystical fulness from his members.

Easton's Bible Dictionary

 Ephesians 1:23 , the church as the fulness of Christ, i.e., the church makes Christ a complete and perfect head.

Copyright Statement These dictionary topics are from M.G. Easton M.A., DD Illustrated Bible Dictionary, Third Edition, published by Thomas Nelson, 1897. Public Domain.

Bibliography Information Easton, Matthew George. Entry for 'Fulness'. Easton's Bible Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/ebd/f/fulness.html. 1897.

Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible

Fulness . See Pleroma.

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

a term variously used in Scripture.

1. "The fullness of time" is the time when the Messiah appeared, which was appointed by God, promised to the fathers, foretold by the prophets, expected by the Jews themselves, and earnestly longed for by all the faithful: "When the fullness of the time was come, God sent his Son,"  Galatians 4:4.

2. The fullness of Christ is the superabundance of grace with which he was filled: "Of his fullness have all we received,"  John 1:16. And whereas men are said to be filled with the Holy Ghost, as John the Baptist,  Luke 1:15; and Stephen,  Acts 6:5; this differs from the fullness of Christ in these three respects:

(a.) Grace in others is by participation, as the moon hath her light from the sun, rivers their waters from the fountain; but in Christ all that perfection and influence which we include in that term is originally, naturally, and of himself.

(b.) The Spirit is in Christ infinitely and above measure,  John 3:34; but in the saints by measure according to the gift of, God,  Ephesians 4:16.

(c.) The saints cannot communicate their graces to others, whereas the gifts of the Spirit are in Christ as a head and fountain, to impart them to his members. "We have received of his fullness,"  John 1:16.

3. It is said that "the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Christ bodily,"  Colossians 2:9; that is, the whole nature and attributes of God are in Christ, and that really, essentially, or substantially; and also personally, by nearest union; as the soul dwells in the body, so that the same person who is man is God also.

4. The Church is called the fullness of Christ,  Ephesians 1:23. It is the Church which makes him a complete and perfect head; for, though he has a natural and personal fullness as God, yet as Mediator he is not full and complete without his mystical body (as a king is not complete without- his subjects), but receives an outward, relative, and mystical fullness from his members (Watson, Dic Tiomary , s.v.).

5. It is probable that the expression Fulness Of The Godhead, as applied to Christ ( Colossians 1:19;  Colossians 2:9), contains aen allusion to the theories of some speculators, who taught that there were "certain distinct beings" (sons as they called them), "who were successive emanations from the Supreme Being himself," to whom they gave the title of "the Fulness." They pretended that one of these had assumed human nature in Jesus Christ. It was probably in designed contradiction to this that the apostle asserts the indwelling in Jesus "of all the fullness of the Godhead" (Eden).