Filled With All the Fullness of God (1)

The fourth of four prayer petitions that the Apostle Paul makes in Ephesians 3:16-19 is that Christians might be filled with all the fullness of God in verse 19b: that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. This final petition has been described as, “The climax of all prayer.” But may we go still further to say that this is the climax of all Christian experience. Our entire Chris­tian experience, our entire growth process should be looking toward being filled with all the fullness of God. This should be our life goal, priority, and motivation. Paul has been progressing higher and higher with each petition, and he now comes to the ultimate reality. Let us look at this principle in three ways: the doctrinal foundation, the practical application, and the realistic outworking.

First, the doctrinal foundation. May we consider for a moment just how important doctrine is. Many in Christianity today think the most important thing is to be “practical” and “relevant.” Agreed, practicality and relevance are important. But doctrine is far more important. It is the foundation on which application and relevancy are built. In fact, the men who have accomplished the most throughout Christian history were Theologically minded. That is, the men who did the most practically were men who thought theologically. In short, we must KNOW before we can ever DO.

May we now consider for a moment what the fulness of God is NOT. This is an important distinction. The fullness of God is not some kind of “mysticism.” More and more “Christian” books today weave in Eastern mysticism. Some mystics speak of being “lost in God.” Others teach that salvation means “absorption into the eternal.” But the fullness of God is not some vague, mystical concept. Neither does this fulness mean that we are filled with God’s material or outward blessing. Among others, the “prosperity teachers” tell us this.

What then is the fulness of God? We must first understand is the word with. The Greek (eis) literally means “to” or “unto.” The idea is not that we are filled with all that God is, that is, all that He is by nature, for this would then make us identical to God, which is, of course, what some cults teach. Rather it means we are filled to or with respect to the fulness of God. In other words, while we cannot possess all or do all that God is and does—such as omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence—we can each be filled up to our capacity in respect to the things of God. At any given moment we can be filled up to our present capacity with the things of God.

Look now at the pivotal word fullness. The Greek (pleroo) pictures that which is filled and was used in ancient times of ships being filled with sailors, rowers, and soldiers. Another way of translating the word is “domination” or similar forms. In fact, this transla­tion fits in all the instances of the various Greek forms used in Ephesians (1:23; 4:10;  4:13; 5:18). So, we may translate our text this way: “That you may be filled up to all the dominance of God.” To be filled with God’s fullness means we are emptied of self and are totally dominated by Him. May we express it thusly: To be filled with the fullness of God is to be dominated by His dominance.

At this point, we might ask, “But how is it possible to be totally dominated by God? How can our every thought, every impulse, every value, and every goal be totally dominated by God?” To illustrate, if we blow air into a balloon, we can truthfully say, “This balloon is full of air.” But we can then blow a little more air into the balloon and say, “It’s still full, but bigger.” Likewise, we may be filled with His fullness today, but we shall be fuller tomorrow. This is indeed and ever-continuing process. How tragic it is when Christians, laymen and preachers alike, think they have grown enough or think they know enough. May we each ask ourselves, “Am I being filled with all the fulness of God? Am I being dominated by His dominance?”

This leads us to our second thought, which we’ll examine in our next post.