A

a

Plausible speech, philosophy (philosophia).

b  -8-.

Traditions of men.

c

-8-.  Rudiments of the world.

-8,9. Not after Christ. Fulness.

Ye are filled full in Him.

*

*

*

*

*

A

c

20-22.  Rudiments of the world.

b

Teaching of men.

a 23-.

Wordy show of wisdom (sophia).

Not in any honour.

-23. Filling of the flesh.

Whatever is intended by Colossians 2:9, `all the fulness of the Godhead

bodily' is closely and intimately carried forward into verse 10 for the word

translated `complete' is pepleromenoi, even as conversely, the title of the

church as `the fulness' is carried upward to Christ, as the One Who is filling

(pleroumenon) the all things in all.  Colossians 2:4-23 combats the invasion of

a vain and deceitful philosophy, supported by tradition and the rudiments of the

world, but `not after Christ', and later in the same argument, not only

philosophies and traditions, but even Divinely appointed `new moons and sabbath

days' are alike set aside as `a shadow of things to come' because `the Body is

of Christ'.  The whole fulness, toward which every age and dispensation has

pointed since the overthrow of the world, is at last seen to be Christ Himself.

All types and shadows that once filled the gap caused by sin, are now seen to be

but transient, or of value only as they point the way to Him, and then

He is Head, He is Pre-eminent, He is Creator and Redeemer, He is the

Firstborn of all creation, and the Firstborn from the dead.  He is the Beginning

of the creation of God (Rev. 3:14; Col. 1:18) the Alpha and Omega, the First and

the Last, in deed and in fact `Christ is all, and in all' (Col. 3:11) in the

church of the One Body, as He will yet be in the whole redeemed universe.  No

more glorious position for the redeemed is conceivable than that revealed in

Ephesians 1:23.  To be one of a kingdom of priests on the earth is a dignity so

great, that Old Testament prophets have piled imagery upon imagery in setting it

forth.  Yet when we come to the Bride of the Lamb, or the description of the

heavenly Jerusalem, we realize how much more glorious is that calling than the

highest calling on earth.  What shall be said then of that company of the

redeemed, blessed neither on earth nor in the descending New Jerusalem, blessed

neither as an earthly kingdom nor as a bride, but blessed `with Christ' where He

now sits `far above all', blessed not only as the members of His Body which is

dignity indeed, but actually destined to be `the fulness of Him', in Whom dwells

all the fulness of the Godhead bodily?

It is evident from what we have discovered in the Word, that the term

`fulness' is vital to the accomplishment of the Divine purpose, and there is one