An Alphabetical Analysis
Volume 5 - Dispensational Truth - Page 313 of 328
INDEX
Such a passage is overwhelming in its magnificence but even so, it does
not prove that the Church is God.  Again, in Ephesians 3:19 the climax of the
prayer there recorded is:
`That ye might be filled with (up to) all the fulness of God',
and once again, here is no aspiration after Deity.
Immediately following
Colossians 2:9 we read:
`And ye are complete (filled full) in Him', where the word `complete'
is pleroo, evidently leading on from the word `fulness' which is pleroma.
Further light on the Scriptural intention of these wonderful words, will be
found in Philippians 2:7, `But made Himself of no reputation', where the
Greek word kenoo means `to empty'.  Before the Saviour could be `filled with
all the fulness of the Godhead bodily' He `emptied Himself'; He Who was rich
became poor; He Who was made a little lower than the angels was made so much
better than the angels, having obtained a more excellent name than they.  It
is evident that He Who could be the Express Image of God's Person, He Who
could uphold all things by the Word of His power, He Who `in the beginning'
laid the foundation of the earth, must have been infinitely `better than the
angels'.  All the references to His being `filled' and becoming the `fulness'
are consequent upon His gracious self -emptying and refer to Him not as He
was `before the world was' but to Him as the Mediator Who stooped so low `for
us men and for our salvation'.
Another suggestive comparison of Ephesians with Philippians is the
usage of the words politeia, politeuma, politeuomai and sumpolites.  Let us
assemble the references first and consider them afterwards:
`Being aliens from the commonwealth (politeia) of Israel' (Eph. 2:12)
`Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow
citizens (sumpolites) with the saints, and of the household of God'
(Eph. 2:19).
`For our conversation (politeuma) is in heaven' (Phil. 3:20).
`Only let your conversation (politeuomai) be as it becometh the gospel
of Christ' (Phil. 1:27).
The ordinary word rendered `conversation' thirteen times in the New
Testament is the Greek anastrophe, Young's Concordance puts as the literal
meaning of politeuo `conversation', `act as a citizen', and politeuma
`citizen state or life'.  As some readers will have seen an attempt to lift
the impress of citizenship from these words, we draw their attention to the
facts of the case as set forth in Liddell & Scott:
Politeia `commonwealth' (Eph. 2:12).  The relation in which a citizen
stands to the state, the condition, right of a citizen, citizenship.
Only in a secondary sense does it mean `one's daily life' but civil
polity, a well ordered republican government, a commonwealth is the
essential meaning.  Politeuo, politeuma, while occupying twenty -five
lines of print for their explanation, never once is translated
`conversation'; always `to live as a citizen' is in view.
Ephesians tells us that the unsaved Gentile was an alien from `the
citizenship of Israel' but upon the breaking down of the middle wall of
partition, those who were then saved were no longer strangers and foreigners