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Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Colossians 2:9

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For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.

9. For ] He is about to shew that “Christ” is the antithesis of this false gospel in two respects; ( a) His glorious Person is all in all as the substance of the true Gospel; ( b) His code of resulting observance appears not in an ascetic rule but in a life of liberty and purity in union with the Risen Lord Himself.

in him dwelleth &c.] See above on Col 1:19.

the Godhead ] The Greek word ( theots) stands here alone in the N.T. It is as strong as possible; Deity, not only Divinity, which is a word much more elastic and inclusive. The Latin Versions have divinitas here; and the word deitas was coined later, on purpose to express the true force of theots. See Lightfoot, who quotes Trench’s Synonyms.

bodily ] “ ‘ Bodily-wise,’ ‘corporeally’; with a bodily manifestation ” (Lightfoot). From all eternity the Divine Plenitude had “dwelt” in the Son of the Father. But in the Incarnation of the Son this indwelling dwelling had been, “for us men and our salvation,” conditioned by the fact of the Lord’s true human Body. In that Body, and through it, was manifested His union with us, and was wrought out His work for us in life and death. From Him now exalted, not only as the Son but as the Son Incarnate, Slain, and Risen, radiates to all His members the Holy Ghost (Rev 5:6). So, for us, the Divine Plenitude dwells in Him “bodily-wise”; not circumscribed by His holy human Body, which “is in heaven and not here” (see the last Rubric of the Communion Office), but eternally conditioned, as to our fruition of It, by the fact of His Incarnation.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

For in him dwelleth – That is, this was the great and central doctrine that was to be maintained about Christ, that all the fulness of the Godhead dwelt in him. Every system which denied this was a denial of the doctrine which they had been taught; and against every thing that would go to undermine this; they were especially to be on their guard. Almost all heresy has been begun by some form of the denial of the great central truth of the incarnation of the Son of God.

All the fulness – Notes, Col 1:19.

Of the Godhead – Of the Divinity, the divine nature – theotes. The word is one that properly denotes the divine nature and perfections. Robinson, Lexicon. It occurs nowhere else in the New Testament.

Bodily – somatikos. This word also is found nowhere else in the New Testament, though the adjective bodily – somatikos – occurs twice; Luk 3:22, in a bodily shape; and 1Ti 4:8, for bodily exercise profiteth little. The word means, having a bodily appearance, instead of existing or appearing in a spiritual form; and the fair sense of the phrase is, that the fullness of the divine nature became incarnate, and was indwelling in the body of the Redeemer. It does not meet the case to say, as Crellius does, that the whole divine will was in him, for the word theote – godhead – does not mean the will of God; and it is as certainly true that the inspired prophets were under the control of the divine will, as that the Saviour was. Nor can it mean, as Socinus supposes, that the fulness of divine knowledge dwelt in him, for this is not the proper meaning of the word ( theotes) godhead; nor can it mean, for the same reason, that a fullness of divine gifts was intrusted to him. The language is such as would be obviously employed on the supposition that God became incarnate, and appeared in human form; and there is no other idea which it so naturally expresses, nor is there any other which it can be made to express without a forced construction. The meaning is, that it was not anyone attribute of the Deity that became incarnate in the Saviour; that he was not merely endowed with the knowledge, or the power, or the wisdom of God; but that the whole Deity thus became incarnate, and appeared in human form; compare Joh 14:9; Joh 1:18. No language could, therefore, more clearly demonstrate the divinity of Christ. Of what mere man – of what angel, could it be used?

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Col 2:9

In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.

I. The house, or place of residence–in Him. In the man Christ Jesus, or in that human nature in which He carried on the business of our salvation; as despicable and abject as it was in the eyes of men, yet it was the temple and seat of the Godhead.

II. The inhabitant–the fulness of the Godhead; not a portion of God only, or His gifts and graces (as we are made partakers of the Divine nature, 1Pe 1:4.), but the whole Godhead.

III. The manner–bodily. The word may relate–

1. To the shadows and figures of the law, and so it signifieth essentially, substantially. God dwelt in the tabernacle, temple, or ark of the covenant, , because of the figures of His presence. In Christ, , as His human nature was the true tabernacle or temple in which He resideth. Christ calls His human nature a temple (Joh 2:19), or else–

2. With respect to the intimacy and closeness of the union. So , may be rendered personally; for body is often put for a person. The two natures were so united in Him, that He is one Christ. (T. Manton, D. D.)

The fulness of Christ

Ships have been wrecked by mistaking one light for another. Men in lifes voyage often make the same terrible blunder. Signals of danger, however, are set up by God to save us from so tragic an end. False teachers were proclaiming fantastic doctrines, but of such death-luring lights the apostle bids the Colossians beware. We need the same warning. Error confronts us in magazines, newspapers, and pulpits. Paul would have us know that all doctrine is false which does not radiate from Christ. Note–

I. Mans condition is a necessitous one.

1. He has Divinely implanted longings for whose satisfaction he has to go out of himself. He has

(1) Social cravings. He was not designed for loneliness but for companionship.

(2) Mental cravings, which sometimes show themselves in the form of curiosity; but the more cultured a man becomes, his mental longings assume a higher form. The journeys taken, libraries collected, the efforts made to ransack past and present witness to these.

(3) Moral and spiritual cravings. What efforts he has made to know God and be at peace with Him.

2. These longings distinguish man from the animal creation, and witness to the grandeur of His soul.

3. Their existence implies that there is somewhere that by which they may be satisfied.

II. Mans necessitous condition is completely met by the Divine fulness. This fulness is–

1. The plenitude of the Godhead. Who can describe this? It is a fathomless ocean and a limitless sky. All we can say is that it is a fulness out of which all our need may be supplied. But we may know of boundless wealth, and yet remain destitute because not able or permitted to approach it. Is this so here? No. As the beams flow from the suns fulness within the reach and for the use of every tree and hedgerow, so the Divine fulness has come down to us all,

2. In the person of Christ, not typically but really.

(1) He meets our social cravings. He has become one with us in sharing our common life, with its sorrows and joys. No one need now be lonely, since here is One who has everything for which we yearn.

(2) He meets our mental cravings. He is the Truth, the Light of the world, the Wisdom of God.

(3) He meets our moral cravings in His revelation of the Father, and in His atonement for sin. Why, then, go to philosophy or sacraments which can only disappoint.

3. Present and unchanging. The Colossian heretics held a temporary fulness; Paul affirms the Divine fulness dwells in Him now and for ever. Earthly things filter away with pitiless haste, but He is the same to-day, etc. Then while we should avoid going elsewhere we should flee to Him at once. His willingness is equal to His ability to distribute. (E. H. Palmer.)

The fulness of God dwelling in Christ

I. The import of the text.

1. All the fulness of the Godhead. The original signifies that by which a thing is filled, completed, or made perfect. The earth is the Lords and the fulness thereof, i.e., all it contains. So the text means all the natural and moral attributes, everything which renders the Divine nature complete. It cannot mean anything less, for if one perfection were taken away there would be something wanting to, and therefore destructive of the fulness of the Godhead.

2. All this fulness dwells in Christ. The word is not that used in Joh 1:14, to dwell in a tabernacle–a temporary residence, but one which signifies to live in a house, a permanent habitation. So then all the fulness of the Godhead dwells in Christ abidingly.

3. Bodily means real and substantial as against shadowy and figurative. The Mosaic law was a shadow, Christ was the body.

II. This import corresponds with other scriptures.

1. We are taught in many places that the Father and the Spirit dwelt in Christ. Our Lord often declared that the Father dwelt in Him, and added He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father. He is also represented as having the Spirit without measure. Now the whole Godhead is included in Father, Son, and Spirit. Wherever these dwell there is the Divine fulness. They dwell in Christ.

2. Christ is represented as possessing all the perfections of Deity–omnipotence in creation and Providence; omniscience in His knowledge of the Father, and of the heart of man; omnipresence in being with His disciples alway. In fact, He is all in all, and therefore has the fulness of the Godhead bodily.

III. Inferences. If all the fulness of the Godhead is in Christ, then–

1. In Him alone can God be found. Men have forsaken God; but they must find Him again or be lost for ever. It is His will that men should seek after Him if haply they may find Him. Now if we wish to find any one we must go to His residence. So since the whole Godhead resides in Jesus as in a permanent habitation, we must repair to Him to find God. I am the Way, the Truth, etc. No man knoweth the Father but the Son, etc. Men may seek Him in the works of creation, in providence, in His Word; but they will never find Him till they come to Christ, for even the Scriptures can only make us wise unto salvation through Him. But if we come to Him, God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness will give us the knowledge of His glory in the face of Jesus Christ.

2. No man can obtain a portion of that fulness except by applying to Christ. Did all the light of the universe dwell in the sun; none could obtain light except from the sun. Were all the water that exists collected into one reservoir none could obtain water but by applying to that reservoir. Now, unless we obtain some of this fulness, we must pine in eternal want. The mercy which pardons sin, the light which illumines the mind, the grace which purifies the heart, the strength which resists and overcomes, the consolation which supports, bright hope and everlasting joy flow from this, and no man can partake of them without partaking of it. Infinitely better to be destitute of everything else than to want this. For it the Saviour invites us to apply to Him.

3. The necessity and worth of faith in Him. Look first at Him and see in Him an inexhaustible fulness of blessing; look next at mankind wanting everything and therefore wretched. Now what is wanted is a channel of communication through which this fulness may flow, so as to be filled with it. Such a channel is faith. Hence John says of believers, and of those only, Of His fulness we have received. (E. Payson, D. D.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 9. For in him dwelleth all the fulness] This is opposed to the vain or empty doctrine of the Gentile and Jewish philosophers: there is a fulness in Christ suited to the empty, destitute state of the human soul, but in the philosophy of the Jews and Gentiles nothing like this was found; nor indeed in the more refined and correct philosophy of the present day. No substitute has ever been found for the grace of the Lord Jesus, and those who have sought for one have disquieted themselves in vain.

By the Godhead or Deity, , we are to understand the state or being of the Divine nature; and by the fulness of that Deity, the infinite attributes essential to such a nature.

Bodily.] signifies truly, really; in opposition to typically, figuratively. There was a symbol of the Divine presence in the Hebrew tabernacle, and in the Jewish temple; but in the body of CHRIST the Deity, with all its plenitude of attributes, dwelt really and substantially: for so the word means; and so it was understood by the ancient Greek fathers, as is fully shown by SUICER, in his Thesaurus, under the word.

“The fulness of the Godhead dwelt in Christ ‘bodily,’ as opposed to the Jewish tabernacle, or temple; truly and really, in opposition to types and figures; not only effectively, as God dwells in good men, but substantially or personally, by the strictest union, as the soul dwells in the body; so that God and man are one Christ.” See Parkhurst.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

For; the causal particle induceth this as an argument to enforce the caution immediately foregoing, against those who did seek to draw from Christ by philosophy, as well as urging the ceremonial law; else the apostles reasoning were not cogent unless against both.

In him; it is evident that the Lord Jesus Christ himself, whom he had described and but just now named, is the subject, the person of whom he speaks, and in whom is seated, and unto whom he attributes, what followeth, Col 1:19; Joh 1:4; 1Ti 4:16. He doth not say, in his doctrine, whatever Socinians cavil, as if they would render the apostle absurd, and not to agree with himself in what he asserts of Christs person before (as hath been showed) and after in the context. It is plain this relative him, respects not only Col 2:8, but Col 2:11, &c. in whom the believing Colossians are said to be complete as their Head, both in the former chapter, and soon after in this. Would it not be absurd to say, Christs doctrine is the head of angels? We are crucified in the doctrine of Christ? Buried and quickened together with his doctrine? The hand-writing of ordinances was nailed to the cross of doctrine? Is a doctrine the head of principalities and powers? Can a doctrine be buried in baptism? &c. To silence all the earth, that they should not restrain it to Christs doctrine only, what he asserts of his person, Paul, after Christ had been several years in heaven, put it in the present tense,

dwelleth, not dwelt, {as 2Ti 1:5} in regard of the person eternally the same, Heb 13:8; for his argument had not been cogent, to contain Christians in the faith of Christ, and their duty to him, to have alleged, in the doctrine of Christ now in heaven hath dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily (could propriety of speech have allowed it); but from the other respect, because in their very flesh (the body of Christ, now an inhabitant of the heavens) the very Godhead, in the whole fulness thereof, personally, from the moment of his incarnation, doth yet dwell. What will not the faithful perform and work out with their utmost faith, that they may never suffer themselves to be rent from spiritual and mystical union with him, in whom they understand that even they themselves shall be also divinely filled, Col 2:10, i.e. in their measure be made partakers of the Divine nature, 2Pe 1:4.

Dwelleth imports more than a transient stay for a few minutes, or a little while, even abiding in him constantly and for ever, as dwelling most usually notes, 2Co 6:16. That which doth thus perpetually abide in his person, as denominated after the human nature, is all the fulness of the Godhead, viz. that rich and incomprehensible abundance of perfections, whereof the supreme and adorable nature is full; so that indeed there is not at all any perfection or excellency in the Divine nature but is found abiding in him. And after no common or ordinary way, but by a hypostatical or personal union of the Godhead with the manhood in Christ; which is not by way of mixture, confusion, conversion, or any other mutation; but

bodily, to exclude that inhabitation which is only by extrinsical denomination. It being an adverb, doth denote the manner as well as the subject; wherefore when he speaks of the temple of his body, Joh 2:21, that doth not fully reach the apostles meaning here: but it must be expounded personally, since in the Greek that which signifies with us a body, and so our English word body, is put for a person, Rom 12:1; 2Co 5:10; Rev 18:13; somebody or nobody, i.e. some person or no person. There is a presence of the Godhead general, by essence and power; particular, in the prophets and apostles working miracles: gracious, in all sanctified ones; glorious, in heaven, in light which no man can approach unto, 1Ti 6:16; relative, in the church visible and ordinances, typically under the law, and symbolically in the sacraments: but all these dwellings, or being present in the creature, fall short of that in the text, viz. bodily, connoting the personal habitation of the Deity in, and union of it with, the humanity of Christ, so close, and strait, and intimate, that the Godhead inhabiting and the manhood inhabited make but one and the same person, even as the reasonable soul and body in man make but one man. The way of the presence of the Deity with the humanity of Christ is above all those manners of the presence of God with angels and men. The Godhead dwells in him personally, in them in regard of assistance and energy: Godhead notes the truth of it; Christ was not only partaker of the Divine nature, 2Pe 1:4, but the very Godhead dwells in him: it is not only the Divinity (as the Socinians, following the Vulgar Latin in this, would have it) but the Deity, the very nature and essence of God. Now it is observable, though in God himself Divinity and Deity be indeed the same, Rom 1:20, and may differ only from the manner of our conception and contemplation; yet here, when the enemies to Christs Deity might by their cavilling make more use of the word Divinity, (as when the soul of man is said to be a divine thing), to insinuate as if it here noted only the Divine will exclusive to the other attributes, (which exclusion the term all doth significantly prevent), the apostle puts in Deity or Godhead. Then lest Christ might (as by the Arians) be deemed a secondary God, or (as some since) a made god, inferior to the Father, he saith the fulness of the Godhead, which speaks him perfect God, coequal with the Father: further, connoting a numerical sameness of essence between the Godhead of the Father and the Son, all the fulness of the Godhead dwelleth in him. There is not one fulness of the Father and another of the Son, but one and the same singular Godhead in both, Joh 10:30. The fulness of the manhood in Adam and Eve were not numerically the same, but the Godhead of the Father and the Son is: yet is not the manhood of Christ co-extended and commensurate with the Godhead (as some Lutherans conceit); but where the manhood is, or Christ as man is, or hath his existence, there the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily: so that this fulness is extended as the manhood only in which it is, and not as far as the Deity in which this derivative fulness is not as in its seat, though it be all originally from it, but inherently or subjectively in Christ.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

9. For“Because.”Their “philosophy” (Col2:8) is not “after Christ,” as all true philosophy is,everything which comes not from, and tends not to, Him, being adelusion; “For in Him (alone) dwelleth” as in a temple,c.

the fulness (Col 1:19Joh 14:10).

of the GodheadTheGreek (theotes) means the ESSENCEand NATURE of theGodhead, not merely the divine perfections and attributesof Divinity (Greek, “theiotes“). He, as man,was not merely God-like, but in the fullest sense, God.

bodilynot merely asbefore His incarnation, but now “bodily in Him” as theincarnate word (Joh 1:14;Joh 1:18). Believers, by unionwith Him, partake of His fulness of the divine nature (Joh 1:16;2Pe 1:4; see on Eph3:19).

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. This is to be understood, not of the doctrine, or Gospel of Christ, as being a perfect revelation of the will of God; but of Christ, and particularly of his human nature, as consisting of a true body and a reasonable soul, in which the Godhead dwells in a most eminent manner: God indeed is everywhere by his powerful presence, was in the tabernacle and temple in a very singular manner, and dwells in the saints in a way of special grace; but resides in the human nature of Christ, in the highest and most exalted manner; that is to deity what the human body is to an human soul, it is the house in which it dwells: so Philo the Jew t calls the “Logos” the house of God, who is the soul of the universe; and elsewhere says u, that God himself has filled the divine Logos wholly with incorporeal powers. The Godhead dwells in Christ as in a tabernacle, in allusion to the tabernacle of Moses, which looked mean without side, but glorious within; where God granted his presence, and accepted the sacrifices of his people; the human nature of Christ is the true antitypical tabernacle, which God pitched, and not man; and sometimes is called a temple, in allusion to Solomon’s; and which is filled with the train of the divine perfections, signified by fulness here: for not the fulness of grace, or a communicative fulness, is here meant; nor the relative fulness, the church; but the fulness of the divine nature, of all the perfections of deity, such as eternity, immensity, omnipresence, omnipotence, omniscience, immutability, necessary and self existence, and every other; for if anyone perfection was wanting, the fulness, much less all the fulness of the Godhead, would not be in him. The act of inhabitation denotes the union of the two natures in Christ, and expresses the distinction of them; and is to be understood of the Godhead, as subsisting in the person of the Son of God, and not as subsisting in the person of the Father, or of the Spirit; and shows the permanency of this union, it is a perpetual abiding one; and this fulness is not dependent on the Father’s pleasure; it is not said of this as of another fulness, Col 1:19; that it pleased the Father that it should dwell in him: the manner in which it dwells, is “bodily”; not by power, as in the universe; nor by grace, as in the saints; nor by any glorious emanations of it, as in heaven; nor by gifts, as in the prophets and eminent men of God; nor by signs symbols, and shadows, as in the tabernacle and temple; but essentially and personally, or by personal union of the divine nature, as subsisting in the Son of God to an human body, chosen and prepared for that purpose, together with a reasonable human soul; which is the great mystery of godliness, the glory of the Christian religion, and what qualified Christ for, and recommends him to us as a Saviour; and is a reason why, as these words are, that the Gospel should be abode by, continued in, and that with thankfulness: nor should any regard be had to vain and deceitful philosophy, to the traditions of men, or rudiments of the world: Christ only is to be looked to, attended, and followed, who has all fulness in him.

t De migr. Abraham, p. 389. u De Sommiis, p. 574.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily ( ). In this sentence, given as the reason (, because) for the preceding claim for Christ as the measure of human knowledge Paul states the heart of his message about the Person of Christ. There dwells (at home) in Christ not one or more aspects of the Godhead (the very of God, from , ) and not to be confused with in Ro 1:20 (from , the

quality of God, divinitas), here only in N.T. as only in Ro 1:20. The distinction is observed in Lucian and Plutarch. occurs in the papyri and inscriptions. Paul here asserts that “all the of the Godhead,” not just certain aspects, dwells in Christ and in bodily form (, late and rare adverb, in Plutarch, inscription, here only in N.T.), dwells now in Christ in his glorified humanity (Php 2:9-11), “the body of his glory” ( ). The fulness of the God-head was in Christ before the Incarnation (John 1:1; John 1:18; Phil 2:6), during the Incarnation (John 1:14; John 1:18; 1John 1:1-3). It was the Son of God who came in the likeness of men (Php 2:7). Paul here disposes of the Docetic theory that Jesus had no human body as well as the Cerinthian separation between the man Jesus and the aeon Christ. He asserts plainly the deity and the humanity of Jesus Christ in corporeal form.

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

Fullness. See on ch. Col 1:19.

Godhead [] . Only here in the New Testament. See on Rom 1:20, where qeiothv divinity or godhood is used. Appropriate there, because God personally would not be known from His revelation in nature, but only His attributes – His majesty and glory. Here Paul is speaking of the essential and personal deity as belonging to Christ. So Bengel : “Not the divine attributes, but the divine nature.”

Bodily [] . In bodily fashion or bodily – wise. The verse contains two distinct assertions : 1. That the fullness of the Godhead eternally dwells in Christ. The present tense katoikei dwelleth, is used like ejstin is (the image), ch. 1 15, to denote an eternal and essential characteristic of Christ ‘s being. The indwelling of the divine fullness in Him is characteristic of Him as Christ, from all ages and to all ages. Hence the fullness of the Godhead dwelt in Him before His incarnation, when He was “in the form of God” (Phi 2:6). The Word in the beginning, was with God and was God (Joh 1:1). It dwelt in Him during His incarnation. It was the Word that became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth, and His glory which was beheld was the glory as of the Only begotten of the Father (Joh 1:14; compare 1Jo 1:1 – 3). The fullness of the Godhead dwells in His glorified humanity in heaven.

Col 2:2The fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him in a bodily way, clothed the body. This means that it dwells in Him as one having a human body. This could not be true of His preincarnate state, when He was “in the form of God,” for the human body was taken on by Him in the fullness of time, when “He became in the likeness of men” (Phi 2:7), when the Word became flesh. The fullness of the Godhead dwelt in His person from His birth to His ascension. He carried His human body with Him into heaven, and in His glorified body now and ever dwells the fullness of the Godhead.

” O, for a sight, a blissful sight Of our Almighty Father ‘s throne ! There sits the Savior crowned with light, Clothed in a body like our own.

“Adoring saints around Him stand, And thrones and powers before Him fall; The God shines gracious through the man, And sheds sweet glories on them all.”

WATTS

“What a contrast to the human tradition and the rudiments of the world” (Meyer). What a contrast to the spiritual agencies conceived as intermediate between God and men, in each of which the divine fullness was abridged and the divine glory shaded, in proportion to the remoteness from God in successive emanation.

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

NOTHING CAN BE ADDED TO COMPLETENESS V. 9 – 13)

1) “For in him dwelleth” (hoti en auto katoikei) “because in him dwells;” permanently dwells, continuously, Joh 1:14; Joh 14:10; Joh 17:21; Joh 17:23; 2Co 5:19 declares that “God (the triune one) was in Christ (dwelling) reconciling the world unto himself;” 1Jn 5:20.

2) “All the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (pen to pleroma tes theotetos somatikos) “all the fulness of the trinity or Godhead bodily.” This passage asserts the real Deity of Christ, as opposed to the erroneous view that angels also constituted the Godhead. Jesus was and is the express image of God in the ancient Hebrew (elohim-trinitarian) sense, Heb 1:1-3.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

9. For in him dwelleth. Here we have the reason why those elements of the world, which are taught by men, do not accord with Christ — because they are additions for supplying a deficiency, as they speak. Now in Christ there is a perfection, to which nothing can be added. Hence everything that mankind of themselves mix up, is at variance with Christ’s nature, because it charges him with imperfection. This argument of itself will suffice for setting aside all the contrivances of Papists. For to what purpose do they tend, (365) but to perfect what was commenced by Christ? (366) Now this outrage upon Christ (367) is not by any means to be endured. They allege, it is true, that they add nothing to Christ, inasmuch as the things that they have appended to the gospel are, as it were, a part of Christianity, but they do not effect an escape by a cavil of this kind. For Paul does not speak of an imaginary Christ, but of a Christ preached, (368) who has revealed himself by express doctrine.

Further, when he says that the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Christ, he means simply, that God is wholly found in him, so that he who is not contented with Christ alone, desires something better and more excellent than God. The sum is this, that God has manifested himself to us fully and perfectly in Christ.

Interpreters explain in different ways the adverb bodily. For my part, I have no doubt that it is employed — not in a strict sense — as meaning substantially. (369) For he places this manifestation of God, which we have in Christ, to all others that have ever been made. For God has often manifested himself to men, but it has been only in part. In Christ, on the other hand, he communicates himself to us wholly. He has also manifested himself to us otherwise, but it is in figures, or by power and grace. In Christ, on the other hand, he has appeared to us essentially. Thus the statement of John holds good:

He that hath the Son, hath the Father also. (1Jo 2:23.)

For those who possess Christ have God truly present, and enjoy Him wholly.

(365) “ Toutes leurs inuentions;” — “All their inventions.”

(366) “ Ce que Christ a commencé seulement;” — “What Christ has only commenced.”

(367) “ Vn tel outrage fait au Fils de Dieu;” — “Such an outrage committed upon the Son of God.”

(368) “ D’vn vray Christ;” — “Of a true Christ.”

(369) “ Σωματικῶς signifies truly, really, in opposition to typically, figuratively. There was a symbol of the Divine presence in the Hebrew tabernacle, and in the Jewish temple; but in the body of Christ the Deity, with all its plenitude of attributes, dwelt really and substantially, for so the word σωματικῶς means.” — Dr. A. Clarke. — Ed.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES

Col. 2:9. In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.There is no minimising the significance of this statement. It is either true or it is the wildest raving of blasphemy. Dwellethhas its settled abode. A change of prefix would give us the word in Luk. 24:18. Dost thou alone sojourn? etc. Dualism separates God from matter as far as possible; the Incarnation unites Him for ever with it. Great is the mystery. Godhead. Though twice before in our A.V. (Act. 17:29; Rom. 1:23), the word here differs from both.

Col. 2:10. And ye are complete in Him.These minor powers of whom you have heard are all subordinate to Him in whom directly you have all you need. There is no need to go vi Philip and Andrew, Mary or Michael, when we would see Jesus.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Col. 2:9-10

The Divine Fulness of Christ a Pledge of the Believers Perfection.

Christianity is the true philosophy. Here are its profoundest depths, its loftiest themes, its most substantial discoveries. The philosophy that is not after Christ is vain and misleading. It was a false conception of the Colossian heresy that the divine energy was dispersed among several spiritual agencies. The apostle boldly declares that in Christ dwells the whole , the entire fulness of the Deity, and that it is in vain to seek for spiritual life in communion with inferior creatures.

I. The divine fulness of Christ.

1. In Christ is the fulness of the Deity. For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead (Col. 2:9). A small text, but a great subject. These words contain the sublimest truth in the narrowest compass. Fulness is a term used to signify all that anything contains. Hence we read of the fulness of the earth, the fulness of the sea, and that the Church is Christs body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all. In Christ inhere all the perfections, attributes, and qualities that essentially constitute the divine naturepower, wisdom, eternity, self-existence, omnipresence, truth, love, holiness. The deities of the heathen never pretended to possess more than a few divine attributes, some portion of divinity. But Christ contains in Himself the totality of divine powers and excellencies.

2. The fulness of the Deity in Christ is present and permanent.Dwelleth. The present tense is used. It is not as a transient gleam or as a brilliant display to serve a temporary purpose, but as an ever-present and unchanging reality. Mystery of mysteries! the body that hungered and thirsted, that bled and died, that rose and ascended on high, is still the temple of illimitable Deity! The manifestations of God through angels and prophets were brief and partial. The Shekinah, or visible glory, that hovered over the ark of the covenant was a symbol only of a present deity, and disappeared as mysteriously as it came. But in Christ the transcendent fulness of the Godhead finds its permanent home, never to depart, never to vanish.

3. The fulness of the Deity in Christ has a visible embodiment.Bodily. In the person of Christ every moral perfection of the Godhead was enshrined, and brought within the range of human vision. He presented and proved the fact of the divine existence. He embodied and declared the divine spirituality. He delineated the divine disposition and character in the days of His flesh. Gleams of the divine nature occasionally broke forth. We beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten Son of God. And now, from that subtle, glorified human form of our exalted Mediator, the splendour of the Deity rays forth, filling the universe with light and glory and joy. In Christ the Godhead is revealed, not as a changing, shadowy phantasm, but as a positive, substantial reality.

II. The supreme authority of Christ.Which is the Head of all principality and power (Col. 2:10).

1. Angels are the principalities and powers of the universe.They are called spirits to express their nature, and angels to designate their office as messengers sent by God. They are called sons of God, to indicate their lofty relationship; cherubim, because of their composite nature, and because they are placed under the presence of Jehovah, whose moving throne they appear to draw; seraphim, because of their burning ardour in executing the commands of God; stars of the morning, to set forth their brightness; a flaming fire, because of the fierceness and celerity with which they carry out the vengeance of Heaven; and they are called principalities and powers on account of their exalted rank and superior endowments.

2. Among the principalities and powers of the universe Christ has supreme authority.He is the Head of all angelic hierarchies. He called them into being. He endows them with vast intelligence. He designates their rank. He controls their beneficent ministries. He fills the circle of their bliss. To worship angels, or to seek their mediation in the affairs of the soul, is not only gross idolatry, but an insufferable insult to the fulness of the Deity in Christ.

III. The believers fulness in Christ.And ye are complete in Him (Col. 2:10).

1. In Christ is the inspiration of the believers life.The soul finds its true life by believing on the Son of God. He that hath the Son hath life. In ourselves we are like empty vessels; but in Christ we are filled up to the brim. As there is an original and divine fullness of the Godhead in Christ, so there is a derived fulness communicated to us. Every advance in Christian experience, every aspiration after a more exalted spiritual tone, every yearning of the soul after clearer light, every struggle for victory over self and sin, is prompted and accelerated by the impetuous inflow of the divine life.

2. In Christ is the perfect ideal of the believers character.Christ has exalted human nature. He took not on Him the nature of angels, but the seed of Abraham. He has shown what human nature can become, and what it can do. In Him we have the illustrious pattern after which our souls are to be fashioned and rounded off into a full-orbed completeness. Christ is the mirror that glasses Gods image before us, and the spirit is the plastic force within that transfers and photographs that image; and so, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

3. In Christ is the interminable bliss of the believers future.The present life is a training for the future. The more it is in harmony with the will of Christ the happier will it be. Every attempt, amid the multiform relations of life, to do our duty in a Christly spirit, is bringing us into closer sympathy with Christ, and preparing us for a joyous life with Him hereafter. The apostle expressed the condition of the highest conceivable bliss to the believer in the words, And so shall we ever be with the Lord.

Lessons.

1. Christ is essentially divine.

2. There is an ineffable fulness of salvation in Christ.

3. All secondary mediators between God and man are superfluous.

4. The soul is complete in Christ only as it believes in Him.

GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES

Col. 2:9-10. A Presentation of Two Great Truths.

I. That all Christianity centres in Christ.

II. That union to Christ makes the soul independent of others.Dykes.

Col. 2:9. The Fulness of Christ.

Christ is full of the power of God.

II.

The love of God.

III.

The grace of God.

IV.

The faithfulness of God.

The purpose of God to punish sin.Preachers Magazine.

Col. 2:10. The Completing of the Soul.

I. We are made complete in Christ by inspirations.

II. We have ideas and ideals in Christ.

III. We are set in a various scheme of relations that we may have a training in virtues equally various and be perfected in them and by means of themBushnell.

The Believer Complete in Christ.

I. Complete in Him with respect to the work which He hath already performed.

1. His obedience and atonement were precisely what God Himself had prescribed.

2. That He obeyed and atoned, we have the perfect evidence of observation and testimony. He Himself declared, I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do. It is finished. To this the Father and the Spirit have expressly borne testimony: by signs and wonders; His resurrection; His ascension; the descent of the Spirit; conversions; the glorification of His people.

3. Into His righteousness thus perfect the believer is admitted.

II. Complete in Him with respect to the work which He is now performing.

1. interceding in heaven.

2. Ruling on earth, and thus giving grace and affording protection.

III. Complete in Him with respect to the work which He is hereafter to perform.

1. As the Resurrection.

2. As the Judges 3. As the Glorifier.

4. As the Consummation and Communicator of eternal blessedness.Stewart.

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

9. for in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, 10. and in him ye are made full, who is the head of all principality and power:

Translation and Paraphrase

9. (It is essential that you follow Christ only,) because in him dwells all the fullness of God-hood in a bodily manner. (It dwelt in his body on earth, and is now in his present glorious heavenly body.)

10. (Also) in him (Christ) you are made complete in every particular; (this is possible only in Christ, the one) who is head over every rule and authority (in heaven and on earth).

Notes

Col. 2:9-10 continues a list of reasons why we should beware of mens traditions and hold only to Christ. (See outline.) The reasons given here are that Christ has perfect God-hood (Col. 2:9); Christ gives perfect completeness; Christ has perfect authority. Why should we turn away from Christ or add anything to what he has said when his nature and works are so perfect? All things that are necessary for life and godliness have been given in Christ. 2Pe. 1:3.

Christ has perfect Godhead, or God-hood. The Greek word (theotes) translated Godhead refers to essential God-quality. A similar word (theiotes) is used in Rom. 1:20; it refers to divinity as reflected in various ways. All the fulnessthe abundance, the full measureof God-hood dwells in Christ. The verb dwell here is from the Gr. katoikeo, meaning to settle or dwell, as opposed to paroikeo, to sojourn or dwell temporarily. God-hood is a permanent quality in Christ.

God-hood dwells in Christ bodily, that is, in a bodily manner. Col. 1:19. This reference to a bodily manner probably refers both to Christs body that he had while on earth, and his present exalted and spiritual body in heaven, visible only to the inhabitants of heaven. Joh. 1:14.

No matter what body is referred to, the teaching of Paul that divine fulness dwelt in a body specially struck at the Gnostic doctrines. They did not think that spiritual and material things could be in contact.

This idea is not some remote historical curiosity. Some scholars today are arguing that we can hold to spiritual truths from Christ, while we at the same time deny the reality of the historical Jesus who is portrayed in the gospel. This is nothing but a modern version of Gnosticism.

There is no more glorious declaration in all the Bible than the statement that in him ye are made full (or complete).

This is an echo of Joh. 1:16 : And of his fullness have we all received.

We all long for a full life. We want to be a complete person with nothing lacking that is of real worth. Contrary to the feelings of most of us fullness of life comes altogether from our association with Christ, and not from any things we may acquire. Luk. 12:15.

Christ has perfect authority. He the head over all principality and power. The terms principality (Gr. arche, beginning or rule) and power (Gr. exousia, authority) apparently refer to high ranking angelic beings, both good and bad. Col. 2:15; Eph. 1:21-22; Eph. 3:10; Eph. 6:12. The terms may also include all authority among both angels and men.

The Gnostics emphasized angels; but Christ is head over all angelic forces. Heb. 1:4-8; Col. 2:18.

Study and Review

13.

What does Godhead mean in Col. 2:9?

14.

In what manner does the fullness of the Godhead dwell in Christ? (Col. 2:10)

15.

How does Col. 2:9 specially apply to Gnostic doctrines?

16.

Where are we made full (or complete) ?

17.

Of what is Christ head (besides the church)? (Col. 2:10)

18.

What (or who) is all principality and power?

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

(9) In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.Here almost every word is emphatic. First, All the fulness of the Godheadnot a mere emanation from the Supreme Being. Next, dwells and remains for evernot descending on Him for a time and leaving Him again. Lastly, bodily, i.e., as incarnate in His humanity. The whole is an extension and enforcement of Col. 1:19, God was pleased that in Him all the fulness should dwell. The horror of all that was material, as having in it the seed of evil, induced denial either of the reality of our Lords body, or of its inseparable connection with the Godhead in Him. Hence the emphasis here; as also we find (somewhat later) in St. John, The Word was made flesh (Joh. 1:14); The spirit which confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh . . . is the spirit of antichrist (1Jn. 4:3).

On the meaning of fullness (plerorna), see Col. 1:10; Eph. 1:3; Eph. 3:19; Eph. 4:13. Here it is only necessary to add, that, as in the later Gnosticism, so probably in its earlier forms, the word was used for the infinite nature of the Supreme Deity, out of which all the emanations (afterwards called ons) received in various degrees of imperfection, according to their capacity. Probably for that reason St. Paul uses it so emphatically here. In the same spirit, St. John declares (Joh. 1:16), Out of His (Christs) fulness have all we received. It is not finite, but infinitely perfect; hence we all can draw from it, yet leave it unimpaired.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

2. Transcended by Christ, Col 2:9-10.

9. In him And in none else, now in heaven as well as when he was on earth, dwelleth really, permanently, and never henceforth to be separated from his humanity, the fulness of the Godhead, the totality of the attributes and perfections of the divine nature. The word translated Godhead means nothing less than the divine nature and essence. Bodily, not as a charism, as in Col 1:19, but corporeally, manifested in his glorious body. Angels have no such glory of person or authority as teachers. Nor was that indwelling Godhead reduced to the dimensions of a human soul, so as to be the human soul of Jesus. It was the fulness of the Godhead.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Christ’s Work for His Church, Resulting in Sanctification.

The glory of Christ in His work of salvation:

v. 9. For in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.

v. 10. And ye are complete in Him, which is the Head of all principality and power;

v. 11. in whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ;

v. 12. buried with Him in Baptism, wherein also ye are risen with Him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised Him from the dead.

v. 13. And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses;

v. 14. blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to is cross;

v. 15. and having spoiled principalities and powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.

The apostle here brings his reasons for admonishing the Christians to lead such lives as are conformable to the high character of their calling. In the first place, they have part in the fullness of His Godhead: Because in Him dwells the entire fullness of the Godhead bodily. Here is a plain and unmistakable asseveration of the deity of Jesus Christ. Paul does not merely state that He is divine, that He has some attributes of God, but he says that the deity, the essential majesty of the Godhead, dwells in Him bodily, according to His body. The fullness of the Godhead assumed human nature in the person, in the body, of Jesus Christ. When the Son of Mary was born at Bethlehem, the eternal Word, the Son of God from eternity, became man; when the Prophet of Nazareth died on the cross, God Himself died, for in His body the fullness of the divine Godhead lived; the fullness of the essential deity had been communicated to Him in such a manner that it partook of all the functions of the human body. Since the same Christ has ascended to the right hand of the majesty of God, it is our Brother, our flesh and blood, in whom the fullness of the eternal Godhead dwells bodily.

In this fullness the believers take part: And it is in Him that you are made full, who is the Head of all principality and power. In Christ the believers reach their full life, in fellowship with Him through faith they are filled with all the fullness of God, Eph 3:19. They have life, divine, abundant, active, fruitful life, in Him, Joh 10:11. In Him they come behind in no gift, 1Co 1:7. This fact ought to have all the greater influence upon the believers since this Christ who lives in them with His gracious power is the Head of all principality and power. The entire universe, including the domain of all the angels, both good and bad, is subject to Him. Therefore we also, to whom this fullness has been imparted, fear no power on the earth or under the earth, since we have Christ on our side, since we are united with Him by the bonds of the most perfect union.

The Christians, furthermore, have in Christ regeneration and a new life through Baptism: In whom you also were circumcised with a circumcision not performed with hands, in the stripping off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ. The apostle here, in addressing a congregation which consisted chiefly of Gentile Christians, compares the sacrament by which they were received into the Church with that by which the Jews of old were made members of the outward people of God. This sacrament is not, indeed, like the circumcision which was performed with hands, in a slight operation upon the body, but it is a sacrament in which the body of the flesh is put off, in which the old, sinful nature of man is laid aside like a filthy garment, never to be donned again. A circumcision of Christ the sacrament is called by which the believers of the New Testament are joined to the Church of Christ. All believers in Christ are in full possession of all the promises which were given to Abraham to apply to all nations. Through this sacrament of admission all believers have become a peculiar people, a people consecrated to the Lord.

The apostle now says expressly what he has reference to: Buried with Him in Baptism, in whom you also were raised up through the faith of the operation of God, who raised Him from the dead. The circumcision of Christ, the stripping off of the sinful nature in man, is Baptism. That is the visible means by which the Lord works regeneration in our hearts. The old Adam in us was mortally wounded when the Lord received us as His own in Baptism. So the figure is consistently carried out: We were buried with Christ by Baptism into death, Rom 6:4, because in Baptism we became partakers of all the spiritual gifts which He earned for us by His entire life, death, and resurrection. Buried with Christ and dead to sin, we now, through the effective working of the word in Baptism, become partakers also of Christ’s resurrection: We are raised with Him. The blessings of His redemption are transmitted to us through faith. Not, indeed, as if even this faith were our own meritorious work, for it is a faith of the operation of God. When we were dead in trespasses and sins, He quickened us together with Christ, Eph 2:1-6. He wrought faith in our hearts through the Sacrament of Baptism. It was a proof of the same divine power by which God raised up Jesus from the dead. Note: The casual comparison between circumcision and Baptism in this passage affords a very strong argument in favor of infant baptism; for the rite of circumcision, as practiced by the Jews, had to take place on the eighth day, and Baptism is spoken of as being parallel to circumcision.

The third great benefit of our union with Christ is this, that we now have the assurance that all sin and guilt is forgiven: And you being dead through trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made you alive with Him, having forgiven us all trespasses. The apostle here presents the work of regeneration much as in Eph 2:1-6: When the Colossians were dead through, by reason of, their sins, when they were lying in spiritual death and were subject to eternal damnation. That this was a lasting condition of the Gentiles, Paul indicates by speaking of the uncircumcision of their flesh. He is speaking of a spiritual condition, Deu 10:16; Jer 4:4, of the sensuous, sinful nature of natural men, of their inherited state of disobedience and enmity toward God. While they were in that condition of spiritual death, while they had no longing for spiritual life, when all their thoughts were at variance with God’s holy Word and will, then it was that God quickened them, made them alive with Christ, made them partakers of the resurrection and of the life of Christ. Paul here skillfully changes his address from the second to the first person, thus softening the harshness of the passage and including himself as a recipient of this blessing. This great gift, this wonderful blessing of being awakened to spiritual life, was transmitted to us by the fact that God forgave us our trespasses; He graciously canceled the debt which was charged against us.

This miracle the apostle proceeds to describe in greater detail: Having blotted out the handwriting in ordinances that was against us, which was directly opposed to us, and He has taken it out of the way by affixing it to the cross. Without Christ the Law was before us like a bond or note of hand, made by us as the debtors in writing, always held before us as a debt which must be discharged. We were under obligation to keep the Law of God, its unfulfilled decrees were a continual accusation against us. No matter which way we turned for relief, there was the Law before our eyes, an insatiable creditor. But then Christ came and paid the entire debt of all mankind, He paid the guilt of all their sins, He secured a complete redemption for them all. Therefore the handwriting is blotted out, the note is canceled, its constant menace has been removed from between God and us. And here Paul, in his eagerness to impress the fact of this great truth upon his readers, uses the strongest possible figure: God has affixed the handwriting of our guilt to the cross. When Christ was crucified, laden, as He was, with the guilt of mankind, God thereby nailed the Law to His cross. Thus it shared in His death, thus it was abrogated, thus it was canceled. See 2Co 5:21; Gal 3:13. Thus there is no more guilt to condemn us, the Law no longer has power over us: Christ’s death has brought us eternal life.

In Him, therefore, we also may triumph over all the powers that oppose us: Having spoiled principalities and powers, He made a show of them with boldness, triumphing over them in it. God, being in Christ for the purpose of reconciling the world to Himself, while He was at the same time the great Ruler and Judge of the universe, made the principalities and powers the object of spoil and booty, He divested those spirits that were opposed to Him, the angels of darkness, of their authority and power. The evil spirits are now no longer able to accuse and condemn the Christians; one little word can fell them. In proof of the fact that the principalities of darkness had been fully conquered, God made a show of them openly, frankly, freely. It was done with that easy confidence and certainty which marks a complete, permanent victory. By virtue of this fact every Christian can point the finger of derision at the mighty spirit of evil, so long as he adheres to the Word, which makes him certain of the great victory. Yea, God has made a triumph of Satan and his host in the cross. Like a mighty general that has fully vanquished a dangerous opponent and is leading him along bound in fetters, so God made the Cross, otherwise the symbol of shame and sorrow, the sign of victory and final triumph over all His enemies. This entire victory, with all its blessings, is ours through the gift of God, by faith. We are victors over the kingdom of darkness, we can triumph over all our enemies, even here in time, and hereafter in one glorious hymn of triumph in all eternity.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

Col 2:9. For in him dwelleth all the fulness, &c. For in him all the plenitude of the Godhead substantially resides. These words contain an evident allusion to the Shechinah in which God dwelt; and so ultimately refer to the adorable mystery of the union of the divine and human natures, in the person of the glorious Emmanuel; which makes him such an object of our hope and confidence, as the most exalted creature, with the most glorious endowments, could never be of himself.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Col 2:9 . Since indeed in Him dwells , etc. This is not “a peg upon which the interpolator hangs his own thoughts” (Holtzmann). On the contrary, Paul assigns a reason for the just said , with a view more effectually to deter them from the false teachers. The force of the reason assigned lies in the fact that, if the case stand so with Christ, as is stated in Col 2:9 ff., by every other regulative principle of doctrine that which is indicated in the words is excluded and negatived. Others make the reason assigned refer to the warning: . . ., so that adduces the reason why they ought to permit this warning to be addressed to them (Hofmann, comp. Huther and Bleek); but, in opposition to this view, it may be urged that the placed emphatically first ( in Him and in no other) points back to the immediately preceding (comp. Chrysostom and Calvin); there is therefore nothing to show that the reference of ought to be carried further back (to ). In Christ the whole fulness of Godhead what a contrast to the human and the of the world!

] The present , for it is the exalted Christ, in the state of His heavenly , that is in view. Comp. Col 1:15 . In Him the entire has its (Eph 2:22 ), so that He is the personal bearer of it, the personal seat of its essential presence.

(comp. on Col 1:19 ) is here more precisely defined by the “vocabulum abstractum significantissimum ” (Bengel) , which specifies what dwells in Christ in its entire fulness, i.e . not, it may be, partially, but in its complete entirety. On the genitive , comp. Rom 11:25 ; Rom 15:29 . It is not the genitive auctoris (Nsselt: “universa comprehensio eorum, quae Deus per Christum vellet in homines transferre”); the very abstract . should have been a sufficient warning against this view, as well as against the interpretation: “id quod inest ” (Bhr). , the Godhead (Lucian, Icarom . 9; Plut. Mor . p. 415 C), the abstract from , is to be distinguished from , the abstract from (Rom 1:20 ; Wis 18:19 ; Lucian, de calumn . 17). The former is Deitas, the being God, i.e . the divine essence, Godhead; the latter is divinitas, i.e . the divine quality, godlikeness . See on Rom 1:20 . Accordingly, the essence of God, undivided and in its whole fulness, dwells in Christ in His exalted state, so that He is the essential and adequate image of God (Col 1:15 ), which He could not be if He were not possessor of the divine essence. The distinction between what is here said about Christ and what is said about Him in Col 1:19 is, that the is here meant metaphysically , of the divina essentia , but in the former passage charismatically, of the divina gratia , and that is conceived here as in present permanence, but in the former passage historically (namely, of Christ’s historical, earthly appearance). See on Col 1:19 . The erroneous attempts that have been made to explain away the literal meaning thus definitely and deliberately expressed by Paul, are similar to those in Col 1:19 . One of these, in particular, is the mis-explanation referring it to the church as the God-filled organ of divine self-revelation (Heinrichs, Baumgarten-Crusius, Schenkel) which has its dwelling-place in Christ. [92] Already Theodoret (comp. in Chrysostom), indeed, quotes the explanation that Christ signifies the church in which the dwells, but on account of hesitates to agree to it, and rather accedes to the common view, thereby deviating from his interpretation of Col 1:19 . Theophylact is substantially right (comp. Chrysostom and Oecumenius): , , so that the fulness of the Godhead in the ontological , and not in the simply mystical or morally religious sense (de Wette) is meant.

But how does it dwell in Christ? , in bodily fashion, i.e . in such a way that through this indwelling in Christ it is in a bodily form of appearance, clothed with a body . Comp. also Hofmann in loc ., and Schriftbew . II. 1, p. 29; Weiss, Bibl. Theol . p. 428, Exo 2 . It is not in Christ ( ), as before the Incarnation it was in the ( , Joh 1:1 ), but (comp. also Gess, Pers. Chr . p. 260 ff.) it is in His glorified body (Phi 3:21 ), so that the and , which already existed in the (Phi 2:6 ), now in Christ’s estate of exaltation which succeeded the state of humiliation, whereby the was affected have a bodily frame, are in bodily personality . [93] Of course the does not thereby itself come into the ranks of the (Plat. Locr . p. 96 A), but is in the exalted Christ after a real fashion (Luk 3:22 ), and therefore Christ Himself is the visible divine-human image of the invisible God (Col 1:15 ). In this glory, as Possessor of the Godhead dwelling in Him bodily, He will also appear at the Parousia an appearance, therefore, which will manifest itself visibly (1Jn 3:2 ) as the actual (Tit 2:13 ). The reference of the whole statement, however, to the exalted Christ is placed beyond question by the use of the present , which asserts the presently existing relation, without requiring a along with it (in opposition to Huther). The renderings: essentialiter , (Cyril, Theophylact, Calvin, Beza, and others, including Usteri, Steiger, Olshausen, Huther, Bisping), in which case some thought of a contrast to the divine in the prophets (see Theophylact), and: realiter (Augustine, Erasmus, Vatablus, Cornelius a Lapide, Grotius, Schoettgen, Wolf, Nsselt, Bleek, and others), in which was found the opposite of (Col 2:17 ), are linguistically inappropriate; for never means anything else than corporeus . Comp. on the adverb, Plut. Mor . p. 424 D. The less justifiable is the hypothesis of Rich. Schmidt ( Paul. Christol . p. 191), that in the term the contrast of Col 2:17 was already present to the apostle’s mind. Those who adopt the erroneous explanation of as referring to the church , assign to the meaning: “so that the church stands related to Him as His body ” (Baumgarten-Crusius and Schenkel), which issues in the absurdity that the body of Christ is held to dwell in Christ, whereas conversely Christ could not but dwell in His body. It is true that the church is related to Christ as His body, not, however, in so far as it dwells in Him (and, according to the context, this must have been the case here , if the explanation in question be adopted), but either in so far as He dwells in it , or in so far as He is its Head , which latter thought is quite foreign to the connection of the passage; for even in Col 2:10 Christ is not called the Head of the church . It is, morever, to be observed, that the adverb is placed emphatically at the end. The special reason , however, on account of which the . . . is thus prominently set forth as bodily, cannot, indeed, be directly shown to have been supplied by the circumstances of the Colossians, but is nevertheless to be recognised in an apologetic interest of opposition to the false teachers, who by their doctrines concerning the angels (comp. Col 2:10 : . .) must have broken up, in a spiritualistic sense, the .

[92] Thus, indeed, the fulness of the Godhead has been removed from Christ, but there has only been gained instead of it the unbiblical idea that the church dwells in Christ. The church has its support in Christ as the corner-stone (Eph 2:20-21 ), but it does not dwell in Him. On the contrary, Christ dwells in the church, which is His body, and the filled by Him (see on Eph 1:23 ), namely, in virtue of the Spirit dwelling in the church (see on Eph 2:22 ), which is the Spirit of Christ (Rom 8:9 ; Gal 4:6 ; Phi 1:19 ).

[93] It is now only worth remarking historically, but is almost incredible, how the Socinians have twisted our verse. Its sense in their view is: “quod in doctrina ipsius tota Dei voluntas integre et reapse est patefacta,” Catech. Racov. 194, p. 398, ed. Oeder. Calovius gives a refutation in detail.

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

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PROPER DEITY OF CHRIST

Col 2:9. In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.

THE Church of Christ in the first ages was composed of Jews and Gentiles. Now, the Jews were at all times fond of their own superstitions, as the Gentiles were of the dogmas of philosophy: and the two, meeting together upon one common gronud, were ready to incorporate their respective peculiarities with the Gospel of Christ. To what extent this has been done in the Church of Rome, is well known. In truth, the whole system of the Catholics is little better than a mixture of heathen rites with Jewish superstitions. And those corruptions, which have prevailed to such an awful extent in the Church of Rome, began at a very early period to make their way into the house of God. Symptoms of an alarming nature had already appeared in the different Churches of Asia: and against them the Apostle put the Colossian converts on their guard; reminding them, that, whatever they might hope to add to Christ and his Gospel, their efforts would be in vain; since in Him dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily; and, consequently, without any addition from the conceits of philosophy, or the traditions of Judaism, he was amply sufficient for the work assigned him, and was able to save to the uttermost all that should come unto God by him.
From this assertion of the Apostle, I shall take occasion to set before you,

The doctrine of the Divinity of Christ

It will be proper to consider it,

As expressed in the text itself

[There are some texts, which, to a superficial observer, bear somewhat of a similar aspect with that before us. For instance, it is said in this very epistle, It hath pleased the Father, that in Christ should all fulness dwell [Note: Col 1:19.]. And, Oat of his fulness we are said to receive even grace for grace [Note: Joh 1:16.]. There is yet a stronger expression in the Epistle to the Ephesians, wherein we are exhorted to contemplate the love of Christ, till we are filled with all the fulness of God [Note: Eph 3:18-19.]: nay, move: we are said ourselves to be the fulness of Him who filleth all in all [Note: Eph 1:23.]. From such Scriptures as these it is argued by many, that the fulness spoken of in my text is only a fulness of gifts committed to Christ for the use of his Church; and that we may as well assume to ourselves the character of the Godhead, as give it to him; since we, no less than he, are said to be filled with all the fulness of God. But, on a closer inspection, there will be found a wide difference between all the foregoing passages and our text. The fulness spoken of in the text is the fulness of the Godhead; residing in Christ, not symbolically, and for a season, as the Shechinah did in the tabernacle, but corporeally, substantially, permanently. There is no doubt a reference here to the Shechinah, which was a shadowy representation of the Deity. But the reference is rather in a way of contrast than of comparison: for, in my text, it is not God who is spoken of, and who is frequently said to dwell in his people, but the Godhead. Nor is Christ said to be filed with it, but to have it essentially dwelling in him; and this, not in a type or shadow, but really, vitally, necessarily, immutably: In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.

Suppose, now, the Lord Jesus Christ to be truly and unquestionably God: suppose, too, it is Gods purpose to make this known to us: then, I would ask, can we conceive of any words that would more clearly convey that truth than the language of my text? I must say, that if the words of my text do not clearly and decidedly declare the Godhead of Christ, no words whatever can express it. Nay, more; if Christ be not truly and properly God, the Apostle has done more, by his unguarded expressions, to lead us to idolatry, than all the most impious sophists in the universe could have done by their most ingenious arguments.]

As confirmed by other passages of Holy Writ

[To enter fully into this subject, would embrace too large a field for one discourse. I shall therefore confine myself to a few passages only, which establish the Divinity of Christ in connexion with his humanity, And here let me call to your remembrance that prophecy of Isaiah, where it is said, To us a child is born; to us a son is given: and his name shall be called, The Mighty God [Note: Isa 9:6.]. This is quite decisive upon the point. Again, in another part of the same prophecy, it is said, A Virgin shall conceive, and bring forth a son; and they shall call his name Emmanel [Note: Isa 7:14.]; which St. Matthew informs us, is God with us [Note: Mat 1:23.]. In the New Testament, St. John, who seems to have been peculiarly attentive to this point, and, more than all the other inspired writers, anxious to impress it on our minds, says expressly, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt amongst us [Note: Joh 1:14.]. St. Paul also, to the same effect, says, Great is the mystery of godliness; God was manifest in the flesh [Note: 1Ti 3:16.]. What shall I say more? It is clear, that it was God, who purchased the Church with his own blood [Note: Act 20:28.]: and that He who wrought out for us a righteousness wherein we are to be accepted before God, is Jehovah himself [Note: Jer 23:6.]. Know ye then, assuredly, that the glorious Person spoken of in my text was no other than our incarnate God, even God over all, blessed for evermore [Note: Rom 9:5.].]

The peculiar caution given by the Apostle, in relation to this doctrine, leads me to shew you,

II.

The importance of it to the welfare of our souls

Beware, says the Apostle, lest any man spoil or rob you, through philosophy and vain deceit. So will I say to you: Beware, lest any deceiver rob you of your hope founded on the divinity of your Lord and Saviour: for,

On that depends the efficacy of his atonement

[Supposing the Lord Jesus Christ to have been a creature, how could he make atonement for sin, or work out a righteousness that should be imputable to us? He could do no more than what, by the law of his creation, he was bound to do; and, after having done it, he would have been only an unprofitable servant. Supposing him to be capable of meriting any thing, he could have merited only for himself. If it be said, that the Divine appointment was sufficient to make his sufferings available for us also, I answer, that, according to that argument, the same value might as easily have been stamped on the sacrifices of the Mosaic law, if God had seen fit to do so. But the Apostle has said, that it is not possible for the blood of bulls and of goats to take away sins. And why not possible? If a Divine appointment were to stamp on one sacrifice a value which it possessed not, it might as well do so on another. But, if the impossibility arise from the inefficacy of a creatures blood, then it must attach to one creature as well as to another. For how remote soever two creatures may be asunder, their distance is but finite: whereas, to take away sin, the value of a sacrifice must be infinite: it must satisfy the demands of infinite justice, and entail upon the sinner all the blessings of infinite love and unbounded mercy. The divinity, of our blessed Lord renders all tins practicable to him. And it is this consideration which emboldens us to deliver our message to sinful men. We believe that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them: and therefore, as ambassadors from God, we beseech men, in Christs stead, to be reconciled to God [Note: 2Co 5:19-20.].]

From that arises his ability to supply our every want

[To Him is committed the entire government of his; Church [Note: Eph 1:22.]. But if He be not God, we shall be in a state little better than the worshippers of Baal. It may be, that he is occupied about the concerns of some other person at the opposite side of the globe; and I must wait till he can hear me, and come to me, and help me: but, whilst he is delaying, I may perish. If he be a mere creature, he cannot be omnipresent, nor omniscient, nor omnipotent. These are the perfections, the incommunicable perfections, of Deity: and if he be not God, he does not possess them: and, if he possess them not, he cannot be sufficient for my wants. But he does possess them. He knows every want and every desire of my soul, Unto Him all things, both in heaven and earth, are naked and opened: and there can be no possible situation wherein his grace shall not be sufficient for me [Note: 1Jn 5:20.]. He is the true God; and therefore he is, and shall be, to me eternal life.]

It is that which will give the chief zest to all our blessedness for evermore

[If my sins were pardoned, though by a mere act of sovereign mercy, I should be happy any where. But when in heaven I contemplate every thing as the fruit of redeeming love, as procured for me through the blood and righteousness of my incarnate God; with what wonder must I be filled! I see now, why all the glorified saints fall upon their faces before God. They have reason to do so: they would be unworthy of a place in heaven, if they did not. How can they sing, To Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood; and remember, that He who so loved them was King of kings and Lord of lords; how can they sing thus, I say, and not be lost in wonder and amazement? And what are those hosannas which I hear offered to God and to the Lamb? What! is a creature joined in one common song of praise with the Creator? and that in heaven, too, in the very presence of the Deity? No; the Lamb is no other than our. incarnate God, the first and the last, who lived, and was dead, and is alive for evermore [Note: Rev 1:17-18.].]

Conclusion
1.

Let this doctrine, then, be deeply fixed in your minds

[Hold it not slightly and superficially; but acquaint yourselves with it, and with the irrefragable proofs whereby it is established. Those who are adverse to it, will bring forward passages which speak of him as inferior to the Father. But we must remember, that the Lord Jesus Christ is spoken of under different characters in Scripture, as God, as man, and as Mediator between God and man. As God, he is altogether, in the highest sense, one with the Father [Note: Joh 10:30.]. In the two latter characters he was inferior to the Father; and must, of course, be spoken of in that light. But these passages no more disprove his divinity, than the passages which speak of him as God disprove his humanity. Man himself is mortal, and immortal; mortal in his body, and immortal in his soul. Who ever thought of putting these in opposition to each other, and of making an affirmation of the one to be a denial of the other? Yet this is what is done by those who deny the divinity of our Lord. But be on your guard against them: and let neither men nor devils rob you of a truth so essential to your happiness both in time and in eternity.]

Let it make a suitable impression on your hearts

[So astonishing is this truth, that it is a wonder we can ever think of any thing else. O, what prostration of soul is it calculated to produce! What admiring and adoring thoughts of God! What a zeal in his service! What a contempt of every thing that can come into competition with him! What boasting of him to our fellow-creatures! What commending of him to all! Verily, if we lived under a suitable impression of this truth, we should, as far as human infirmity would admit of it, resemble the very hosts around the throne. Let us, then, aspire after this experience. Let admiration, and love, and gratitude, and thanksgiving, occupy, as it were, our whole lives. And let us be looking forward to that blissful period, when we shall see him as we are seen; and know him, even as we are known.]

Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)

9 For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.

Ver. 9. All the fulness of the Godhead bodily ] That is, essentially, not in clouds and ceremonies, as once between the cherubims, which the Jews called Shechinah; whereunto the apostle here alludeth.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

9 .] (supply, ‘as all true philosophy ought to be’) because in Him (emphatic: in Him alone ) dwelleth (now, in His exaltation) all the fulness (cf. on ch. Col 1:19 , and see below) of the Godhead (Deity: the essential being of God: ‘ das Gott sein ,’ as Meyer. , the abstract of , must not be confounded with the abstract of , divine, which occurs in Rom 1:20 , where see Fritzsche’s note. does not occur in the classics, but is found in Lucian, Icaromenippus, c. 9: , . . ‘The fulness of the Godhead’ here spoken of must be taken, as indeed the context shews, metaphysically, and not as ‘all fulness’ in ch. Col 1:19 , where the historical Christ, as manifested in redemption, was in question; see this well set forth in Mey.’s note. There, the lower side, so to speak, of that fulness, was set forth the side which is presented to us here, is the higher side. Some strangely take here to mean the Church so Heinr. in Mey.: “Ab eo collecta est omnis ex omnibus sine discrimine gentibus ecclesia, eo tauquam , tanquam , continetur gubernaturque.” Others again hold Christ here to mean the Church, in whom [or which] the dwells: so in Thdrt. and Chrys.) bodily (i.e. manifested corporeally, in His present glorified Body cf. on above, and Phi 3:21 . Before His incarnation, it dwelt in Him, as the , but not , as now that He is the . This is the obvious, and I am persuaded only tenable interpretation. And so Calov., Est., De W., Mey., Eadie, al. Others have been 1) ‘ really ,’ as distinguished from : so, resting for the most part on Col 2:17 , where the reference is quite different, Aug., Corn.-a-lap., Grot., Schttg., Wolf, Nsselt, Rev 2 ) ‘ essentially ,’ , as contrasted with the energic dwelling of God in the prophets: the objection to which is that the word cannot have this meaning: so Cyr., Thl., Calv., Beza, Usteri, p. 324, Olsh., al.), and ye are (already there is an emphasis in the prefixing of ) in Him (in your union with Him, ‘Christo cum sitis semel insiti,’ Erasm. in Mey.) filled up (with all divine gifts so that you need not any supplementary sources of grace such as your teachers are directing you to, reff.: , as Thdrt.: cf. Joh 1:16 , : not, as Chrys., Thl., De W., ‘with the fulness of the Godhead,’ which is not true , and would require . .

Nor must be taken as imperative, against the whole context, which is assertive, no less than usage ‘verbum nunquam in N. T. sensu imperandi adhibitum invenio, v. c. , sed potius , cf. 1Co 10:32 ; 1Co 11:1 ; 1Co 15:58 ; et Eph 4:32 ; Eph 5:1 ; Eph 5:7 ; Eph 5:17 , &c. Itaque si Paulus imperare hoc loco quicquam voluisset, scripturus potius erat . .’ Wolf. What follows, shews them that He their perfection, is not to be mixed up with other dignities, as objects of adoration, for He is the Head of all such) who (or, which : but the neuter seems to have been written to agree with ) is the Head of every government and power :

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Col 2:9 . is connected by Bleek and Meyer with ., but it is much more probable that it should be connected with the whole warning introduced by . The false teachers represented the fulness of the Godhead as distributed among the angels, and thus led their victims captive. Paul’s warning against the false doctrine thus rests on the fact that it was in Christ that the whole fulness dwelt. is emphatic, in Him and in Him alone. : “permanently dwells”. The reference is to the Exalted State, not only on account of the present, but of the context and Paul’s Christology generally. : “all the fulness of the Godhead”. is emphatic, the whole fulness dwells in Christ, therefore it is vain to seek it wholly or partially outside of Him. . . . is not to be taken (as by Ol.) to mean the perfection of Divinity, i.e. , ideal holiness. Nor can it mean the Church, for which Eph 1:23 gives no support, nor yet the universe, either of which must have been very differently expressed. The addition of defines . as the fulness of Deity. The word is to be distinguished from as Deity, the being God, from Divinity, the being Divine or Godlike. The passage thus asserts the real Deity of Christ. . This word is very variously interpreted. The reference is usually taken to be to the glorified body of Christ, or (as by Lightf.) to the Incarnation, and the word is translated “in bodily fashion”. Apart from the question whether the word naturally expresses this, there is the difficulty caused by the contrast implied in its emphatic position. This contrast is sometimes thought to be to the pre-incarnate state, but this has no relevance here. A contrast to the angels might be in point, but they were closely connected with bodies, so the contrast in this respect did not exist. But neither is Soden’s view that while the angels have bodies what is expressed in them is only (Rom 1:20 ) not . . , a tenable explanation, since this is just read into the words, not elicited from them; nor could such a distinction have occurred to the readers. This interpretation of ., then, as expressing the indwelling of the fulness in a body, although said by Abbott to be “the only one tenable,” is encumbered with grave difficulties, and has been rejected by several commentators. Many have taken it to mean “really” (recently Bleek, Kl [12] , Everling, Cremer). This is supported by the contrast of with in Col 2:17 , the indwelling is real and not shadowy or typical. But could hardly express this shade of meaning unless the antithesis was expressed. Oltramare translates “personally, in His person”. But he quotes no instances of the adverb, but only of . And Haupt’s criticism is just, that this sense might suggest that in God Himself it dwelt impersonally. After an elaborate examination of the various views, Haupt puts forward the explanation that . relates to . . . ., and is to be translated “in the form of a body”. The meaning he takes to be that the fulness exists in Christ as a body, that is as a complete and organic whole. This suits the context and the general argument better than the reference to Christ’s own body. In contrast to the distribution of the fulness among the angels, or to the view that it dwelt only partially in Him, Paul insists that all the fulness dwells in Him, and not fragmentarily but as an organic whole. This view, like Oltramare’s, is supported only by references to the use of . This is not a fatal objectin, and its harmony with the context makes it the most probable interpretation.

[12] Klpper.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

For = Because.

dwelleth, See Col 1:19.

fulness. See Col 1:19.

Godhead. App-98.

bodily. Greek somatikos. Only here. The adjective in Luk 3:22. 1Ti 4:8.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

9.] (supply, as all true philosophy ought to be) because in Him (emphatic: in Him alone) dwelleth (now, in His exaltation) all the fulness (cf. on ch. Col 1:19, and see below) of the Godhead (Deity: the essential being of God: das Gott sein, as Meyer. , the abstract of , must not be confounded with the abstract of , divine, which occurs in Rom 1:20, where see Fritzsches note. does not occur in the classics, but is found in Lucian, Icaromenippus, c. 9: , . . The fulness of the Godhead here spoken of must be taken, as indeed the context shews, metaphysically, and not as all fulness in ch. Col 1:19, where the historical Christ, as manifested in redemption, was in question; see this well set forth in Mey.s note. There, the lower side, so to speak, of that fulness, was set forth-the side which is presented to us here, is the higher side. Some strangely take here to mean the Church-so Heinr. in Mey.: Ab eo collecta est omnis ex omnibus sine discrimine gentibus ecclesia, eo tauquam , tanquam , continetur gubernaturque. Others again hold Christ here to mean the Church, in whom [or which] the dwells: so in Thdrt. and Chrys.) bodily (i.e. manifested corporeally, in His present glorified Body-cf. on above, and Php 3:21. Before His incarnation, it dwelt in Him, as the , but not , as now that He is the . This is the obvious, and I am persuaded only tenable interpretation. And so Calov., Est., De W., Mey., Eadie, al. Others have been 1) really, as distinguished from : so,-resting for the most part on Col 2:17, where the reference is quite different,-Aug., Corn.-a-lap., Grot., Schttg., Wolf, Nsselt, al. 2) essentially, , as contrasted with the energic dwelling of God in the prophets: the objection to which is that the word cannot have this meaning: so Cyr., Thl., Calv., Beza, Usteri, p. 324, Olsh., al.), and ye are (already-there is an emphasis in the prefixing of ) in Him (in your union with Him,-Christo cum sitis semel insiti, Erasm. in Mey.) filled up (with all divine gifts-so that you need not any supplementary sources of grace such as your teachers are directing you to,-reff.: , as Thdrt.: cf. Joh 1:16, : not, as Chrys., Thl., De W., with the fulness of the Godhead, which is not true, and would require . .

Nor must be taken as imperative, against the whole context, which is assertive, no less than usage-verbum nunquam in N. T. sensu imperandi adhibitum invenio, v. c. , sed potius , cf. 1Co 10:32; 1Co 11:1; 1Co 15:58; et Eph 4:32; Eph 5:1; Eph 5:7; Eph 5:17, &c. Itaque si Paulus imperare hoc loco quicquam voluisset, scripturus potius erat . . Wolf. What follows, shews them that He their perfection, is not to be mixed up with other dignities, as objects of adoration, for He is the Head of all such)-who (or, which: but the neuter seems to have been written to agree with ) is the Head of every government and power:

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Col 2:9. ) for, since. The reason is hereby given, why those alone should be attended to, who teach according to Christ.- , in Him) Joh 14:10.-, dwells) ch. Col 1:19, note.- , all the fulness of the Godhead) Believers are filled with [rather into, , so as to enter into a living participation of] all the fulness of God; Eph 3:19. But all the fulness of the Godhead, i.e. the Godhead in its greatest fulness, dwells in Christ; not merely the Divine attributes, but the Divine nature itself; ch. Col 1:19. The abstract word is most significant.[7]-, bodily) God is the head of Christ, 1Co 11:3, and Christ is the head of all, Col 2:10; and Christ is related to God, as His body, the Church, is to Christ; but Christ could not with propriety be called the body of God. Therefore the language is varied. The Godhead itself, as it were the very entire substance (essence) of the Godhead, dwells in Christ, in a manner most immediate (vividly present) and most real. The type was Gods glory dwelling in the temple of Solomon. , the body, does not always denote the body properly so called; Col 2:11; Col 2:17

[7] Of the Godhead, in its essence not merely , of the godlike character.-ED.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Col 2:9

for in him dwelleth-Not a mere emanation of the Supreme Being, but dwelleth and remains forever-not dwelling in him for a time and leaving him again.

all the fulness-The whole is an extension and enforcement of for it was the good pleasure of the Father that in him should all the fulness dwell. (Col 1:19).

of the Godhead bodily,-[The false teachers claimed to be in horror of all that was material, as having in it the seed of evil, and for that reason they denied either the reality of our Lords body or its inseparable connection with the Godhead in him. Hence Pauls emphasis here; as John also in the following: And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father), full of grace and truth. (Joh 1:14). And he gave the following warning: Beloved, believe not every spirit, but prove the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: and every spirit that confesseth not Jesus is not of God: and this is the spirit of the antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it cometh; and now it is in the world already. (1Jn 4:1-3).]

All the wisdom, power, and goodness of the Godhead for uplifting and saving men is embodied in the person of Jesus Christ. And in his provisions are found the only source and righteousness and life for man. Whosoever looks away from him and his teachings turns his back upon God and upon all his provisions for the salvation of man. But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who was made unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption: that, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. (1Co 1:30-31). In the way of redemption provided by God, man must walk, that his righteousness and salvation may be of God and not stand in the wisdom of man. In the bodily form of Jesus Christ dwells the full power and excellence of the Godhead. For after his resurrection from the dead, Jesus said: All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth. (Mat 28:18).

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

Complete in Christ

For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and in him ye are made full.Col 2:9-10.

In the previous part of this far-reaching letter the Apostle had been exalting the Christ, who, he declared, was the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature. He was no mere child of manno mere hero of the race or wise member of the common family. He was all this, it is true; but He was far more, and the superhuman element of His nature was the differentiating peculiarity of His unique personality. If He had been only the greatest man, there might yet be a greater, before whose throne Christ Himself would require to bow. If He had been an angelone of the hierarchies of heaven,there might, in the future, be a greater, to whom the Christ of Paul would require to give place. But the One whom the Apostle set forth was more than man, more than cherubim or seraphim. He could be loved with a perfect love; obeyed with full and constant obedience; worshipped with the whole spirit. Such service rendered to Him would be a reasonable service in harmony with what is right and becoming. From this position the Colossians were not to depart, or allow themselves to be driven, for, says the Apostle, in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, adding by way of practical application the important truth, and ye are complete in him, or as the Revised Version has it, in him ye are made full, that is, completed, made perfectHe is the complement of your being.

The later Jewish theologians had laid much stress upon the delivery of the Sinaitic Law through the agency of angels acting as delegates for the Most High God. The Author of Christianity might be superior to Moses and the prophets, but could He challenge comparison with those pure and mighty spirits compared with whom the greatest of the sons of Israel, as beings of flesh and blood, were insignificant and sinful? The answer is, that if Christ is not the peer of the angels, this is because He is their Lord and Master. The angels are ministers of the Divine will; they are engaged in stated services enjoined on them towards creatures lower than themselves, yet redeemed by Christ. But He, in His glory above the heavens, is invested with attributes to which the highest angel could never pretend. In His crucified but now enthroned Humanity, He is seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high; He is seated there, as being Heir of all things; the angels themselves are but a portion of His vast inheritance.1 [Note: H. P. Liddon, Bampton Lectures, 321.]

Christs Fulness

The word fulness means that which is filled, made perfect, made complete. The earth is the Lords, and the fulness thereof, that is to say, all that the earth contains is the Lords. And the meaning of the text is that all the natural, the moral attributes or qualities of the Eternal God are in the person under consideration. If any one attribute or quality were omitted, any one element of His being were left out, it would be impossible for inspiration to say that in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.2 [Note: D. D. McLaurin.]

The year 1899, which proved so sadly eventful, opened for Berry and his people with some degree of confidence and hope. In a letter written to the Christian World, dated January 3rd, he thanked his friends for countless kindly messages he had received, and for the light they shed upon many dark hours, and the courage they inspired when pain brought peril and hope was dim. He had gained strength since his return home, and was able to preach once on each of the five Sundays in January. His second sermon was on Completeness in Christ, Col 2:10, and dealt with the reality, the closeness, the richness of the believers union with Christ. We are more than followers, learners, friends; we are bound to Him in a more than natural relation, one that is vital, organic, dependent, and derivative, and that more is expressed by the phrase In Christ. All that is His is ours and ours His. His our sin, our penitence, our fears, our weakness, our hope. Ours His death, His resurrection, His reign, His dominion.3 [Note: J. S. Drummond, Charles A. Berry, D.D., 203.]

A heresy, a subtle, poisonous, destructive heresy was invading the fold of that little Church. The heresy was this. Matter is essentially and inherently evil. Flesh is inherently and essentially evil. It is the natural home of evil. God is essentially, inherently holy, and between the essentially, inherently holy God and the inherently and essentially evil flesh there can be no communion. That was the beginning of the heresy. Then this question was propounded: How, then, can the essentially holy God come into contact with essentially evil man? And here is what the heresy devisedthat out of the holy Deity there emanated a presence with holiness slightly diluted, and out of the second emanation there came a third, with the holiness again further diluted, and so on, from emanation to emanation, in ever-decreasing holiness, with ever-increasing impoverishment of Divinity, until the last emanation you come to is one slightly better than evil man himself, and those two can touch and hold fellowship and communion. That is to say, that between God and essentially evil matter there had been constructed a bridge, with decreasing gradients of Divinity, each one less Divine than the one behind it, until there comes one in the distant chain who is so little better than ourselves that we can touch and have communion and fellowship.

What was the effect of that heresy upon the little Church? That little Church of Coloss began to think that God was infinitely remote because of His holiness; that between them there was a perfect hierarchy of beings through whom they had to communicate if they wanted to get to Himfirst to the one nearest, and through him to the next, and through him to the next, and on in the ascending scale until, in the far, far, almost infinite distance they touched God. That was the heresy invading that little Church and destroying its Christian faith. What was the result? There were two theological results. First, it certainly destroyed the sovereign lordship and ascendancy of Jesus. Whatever else we can say about Jesus, He was the One that touched. He touched the Magdalene, and worse than the Magdalene. He touched Zacchus, and He touched the leper. He touched; but by this heresy it was the last link in the chain that touched. It was the one whose deity was most diluted. It was the last link. It was the One nearest unto ourselves who came to save. I say that destroys the lordship of Jesus; I say that, if that heresy were true, then between the Lord Jesus and the throne there were a thousand lords and sovereigns higher than He. He was unthroned, and became a little better than you and I. Our Lord Jesus, by this theory, was on the next step of the ladder, and between Him and the highest there was an infinitely remote scale of beings more Divine than He. But it not only destroys the lordship of Jesus, it destroys the supreme mediatorship of Christ. If between us and God there is a long chain of intermediate beings, then His mediatorship is destroyed, and I do not wonder that men began to worship angels. If I thought my Lord was only at the next step of the gradient from me, and beyond there were angels, and principalities and powers, I should want to be at them, and should want to pray to them, and their influence I should seek to discover. A heresy like that dethrones the Son of God. As for the ethical results, they are quite as clear and quite as sure and quite as dangerous. The extraordinary thing is that in this little Christian Church the men who were victimized by its heresy chose two absolutely different ways. One party said: If flesh is essentially evil, if the evil is native to flesh, then in evil there is no shame; if that is its natural home, let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die. And so they rushed into licentiousness. There was another party who said: If flesh is essentially evil, spurn it, maul it, bruise it, spit upon it, refuse it ordinary decencies; decline to wash it, withhold ordinary courtesy, stamp on it. That was what Paul was facing when he said: Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost.

What did Paul say of Jesus in the light of that heresy? In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. Here is no dilution of God, no impoverished remnant. Here is no washed-out Divinity. In him dwelleth all the fulness. Does that not play havoc with the heresy?1 [Note: J. H. Jowett, in The British Weekly, April 6, 1911, p. 4.]

1. All the fulness of God is in Christ. Our Lord is not a mere emanation of God; not a mere flash of light, but its very brightness; not a mere tone of the truth, but the veritable Word. All the fulness of the Godhead, that is, the whole unbounded powers and attributes of Deity, the term used being the abstract term Godhead, instead of the more usual term God, in order to express with the utmost force the thought of the indwelling in Christ of the whole essence and nature of God. Bodilythat points to the Incarnation, and so is an advance upon the passage in the former chapter (Col 2:19), which speaks of the fulness dwelling in the Eternal Word, whereas this speaks of the Eternal Word in whom the fulness dwelt, becoming flesh. So we are directed to the glorified corporeal humanity of Jesus Christ in His exaltation as the abode, now and ever, of all the fulness of the Divine nature, which is thereby brought very near to us. This grand truth seems to Paul to shiver to pieces all the dreams of these teachers about angel mediators, and to brand as folly every attempt to learn truth and God anywhere but in Him.

It is not simply that in Jesus, the founder of Christianity, there suddenly appeared in Palestine a fuller exhibition than elsewhere in history of qualities which we count in a vague sense Divineof spiritual insight, of moral purity and philanthropy and love. So much, at least, will every modern thinker grant; but it is that in Him was then, and in Him is now, though now unseen, very God, in actual, vital union with this fallen manhood, rich with the plenitude of infinite grace and power, a fresh, living centre and head of re-creative influence for men, able to make all human things new. This, and no less, is what we believe and teach; this, and no less, is what I venture to think the world wants; for short of this Divine mystery and miracle of the God-Man reuniting man to Godhead by the life of love and righteousness, giving Himself for us and to us, and so from Himself, as the spiritual head and centre of mankind, remaking both manhood and mankindI say, apart from that and short of that, I know not where to look for a gospel, a veritable good news for this stricken earth, a glad tidings of great joy to all people.1 [Note: J. Oswald Dykes.]

2. All the fulness of God was incarnate in Christs humanity. It dwelt in Him bodily. The purity, righteousness, wisdom, compassion, love, of God were gathered up in that human life. He was ImmanuelGod with us. False teachers, imagining that matter was essentially evil, could not brook the thought of the Divine Redeemer linking Himself for ever with a human body, and they either denied the reality of His body, or its inseparable connexion with Him for ever. Paul says the fulness of the Godhead dwells in Christ in a bodily way. The Word was made flesh. Some have thought to make this fact seem impossible by absurd representations, which go on the assumption that an infinite God cannot enter a finite being without ceasing to be infinite. How He can do so we cannot understand. This is not a subject which admits of being rationalized. But dogmatic objectors may be reminded that it is their teaching which sets a limit to the infinite by proclaiming its inability to enter fully a finite being. Does not the infinity of God involve, not the distribution of innumerable parts through all space, but His presence wholly in every region of the universe? Why, then, cannot He manifest His presence in a peculiar way in one being? Moreover, if God, who is always infinite, can dwell in man at all, that fact is a mystery which seems to foreshadow the greater mystery of His full dwelling in Christ. The humanity of Christ is real and pure and perfect humanity, and God who dwells in Him is still perfect God. This is very different from the metamorphosis of a God into a man that is described in heathen mythologies. It is to be practically learnt from this Christian mystery that God is now very near to us in a brother man; that we can be raised to God and become one with Christ and God through Christs oneness with us and God.

The Incarnate Logos is human; for how could He in whom men are constituted be other than human? But He was not and is not a man. He is the constitutor of man, entering into a new relation to that which He had constituted like Himself, in order that, instead of losing its likeness to and vital union with Himself, and thereby its very existence, through sin, it might throw off sin, and resume the character it had borne and re-enter on the development for which it was intended. He could not have discharged this function had He and humanity not been essentially akin; it would have been equally impossible for Him to discharge the function had He been a man. He was the Divine Logos, self-limited; and as such doubly akin to, though not one with or of, humanityself-limited in order to save that which had its life through, and was, in a very real sense, part of Himself.1 [Note: D. W. Simon, Reconciliation by Incarnation.]

3. All the fulness of God is permanent in Christ. In him dwelleth. The word dwelleth means more than a temporary sojourn. It means to live as in a house abidingly. To a Christian there is nothing more delightful than the thought that the Son of God, the Eternal, now dwells in the bodily manifestation which He took with Him to glory. We shall see Him, we shall know Him, for He is the God now dwelling in the body.

The most deeply affectionate natures are limited in heart power. Their love will languish under shock and cool in frigid atmospheres. In Christ loves fulness dwells. His compassions fail not. The drain upon His sympathies in the days of His flesh was continuous and tremendous. The world to Him was as the daughter of the horse-leech crying Give, give! Yet it was ever met by a full response. Even that awful frost which descended on Calvary, when the treachery of one disciple and the desertion of others, coupled with the mockings of enemies, drove the temperature about Him down to arctic depths; when even the gates of heaven seemed to close against Him and He was left for one terrible space uncomforted of God, the fountain of His grace stood at the full. It still pulsed on undiminished. No drain could lower it, no frost could seal it. Whilst His enemies mocked His agonies He could pray, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. With the heavens black and seemingly pitiless above Him, He could cry with loving confidence and filial submissiveness, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. Under every circumstance we find Him a fountain full of grace and truth.1 [Note: J. D. Freeman, Concerning the Christ, 197.]

It is a person, not a dogma, which invites my faith; a person, not a code, which asks for obedience. Jesus stands in the way of every selfishness; He leads in the path of every sacrifice; He is crucified in every act of sin; He is glorified in every act of holiness. St. Stephen, as he suffered for the Gospel, saw the heavens open and Jesus standing to receive him. St. Peter, fleeing in a second panic from Rome, meets Jesus returning to be crucified in his place. Conscience and heart are settled on Jesus, and one feels within ones soul the tides of His virtue. It is not the doctrines or the ethics of Christianity that are its irresistible attraction. Its doctrines have often been a stumbling-block, and its ethics excel only in degree. The life-blood of Christianity is Christ.2 [Note: John Watson, The Mind of the Master.]

Our Sufficiency

In him ye are made full.

1. Apart from Christ we are empty, incomplete.All men are in themselves imperfect, incomplete, mere fragments as human beings and moral creatures.

Mans life on earth is incomplete because it contains an explicit contradiction between his conception of what he is and of what he ought to be. His distinctive mark is the possession of an ideal in the light of which he can always condemn his actual condition. The disparity between actual and ideal is never removed on earth, since, however steadily the man advances, his ideal continually recedes before him; and in this he may esteem himself fortunate, since otherwise there would be no more reason for predicating immortality of him than there is for predicating it of the beasts which perish.1 [Note: A. C. Pigou, Browning as a Religious Teacher, 56.]

Man feels capacities within him that ask an eternity for bloom and fruitage. There is in nature something that sends him in yearning search beyond and above nature.

That type of perfect in his mind

In nature can he nowhere find,

He sows himself on every wind.

In the entire universe, as revealed to man by his senses, there is nothing perfect; and the central impulse in all mans noblest striving is derived from the aspiration of his spirit towards a perfect truth, a perfect beauty, a perfect happiness, which are exemplified nowhere in the world. Art, religion, and the impetuous career of the race towards a higher grade of civilization, depend alike upon the universal imperfection of the material world and the impossibility that a God-related spirit, which man is, should be contented therewith.2 [Note: P. Bayne, Lessons from my Masters, 284.]

The half moon shows a face of plaintive sweetness

Ready and poised to wax or wane;

A fire of pale desire in incompleteness,

Tending to pleasure or to pain:

Lo, while we gaze, she rolleth on in fleetness

To perfect loss or perfect gain.

Half bitterness we know, we know half sweetness;

This world is all on wax, on wane:

When shall completeness round times incompleteness,

Fulfilling joy, fulfilling pain?

Lo, while we ask, life rolleth on in fleetness

To finished loss or finished gain.3 [Note: Christina G. Rossetti, Poems, 198.]

2. Christs fulness is sufficient for us.In him ye are made full. He is our reservoir; He is our well-spring; He is our infinite resource. It is a gracious, beautiful, heartening word, this word fulness. It is as though our life were all gaps, defects, deficiencies, and the gaps in the shore of human need were as many as human kind, and of multiplex variety, and our Lord were an ocean of tidal fulness flowing up in all His fulness to the shore of human need, till every bay and cove and cranny and crevice is filled. Every mans gap is filled in Jesus. Wherever there is a crevice or a chink, or a bay in human need, the Lord fills it. Everybody finds his peace in Jesus.

He enters the soul to fill out every lack, and every secret fault, knowing it all through with a most subtle and perfect knowledge. He communicates, inbreathes, sheds abroad Himself, configuring it inwardly to all that is most perfect in Himself. He does it by a working in the nature of inspiration, not putting the will on forming this or that particular trait for itself, but by flooding and floating it on towards this or that, by His own Divine motion, turning its very liberty towards all it wants and needs to receive. These inspirations are to be currents running exactly where it requires to be carried, and it is just as if every ship in the sea were to have a Gulf Stream given specially to it, running the exact course of its voyage, and drifting it on to its port. The inspirations are all perfect, they are adequate, exact and steady, so that no completest issue may be missed.

For fifteen years it has been my glory to proclaim it with increasing conviction and with a deepening and growing experience. I have never yet in all my life found a single spiritual need that I could not find redressed and filled in Christ. I dont wonder that Hugh Price Hughes said to his wife, Put on my grave-stone, Thou, O Christ, art all I want. 1 [Note: J. H. Jowett, in The British Weekly, April 6, 1911, p. 4.]

On New Years Day 1905 came the sudden death of Henry Thompson, vicar of St. Marys, Oxford, and sometime Warden of Radley. He and the Bishop had been brothers-in-law since 1877. To his sister, the Bishop thus wrote from Mortehoe, on January 2: He is spared suffering, and weariness, and old age; and you, in your great love for him, will think much of this, that he is spared the trial of loneliness; and though it falls on you, you will bear it as for him, since one or other must have borne it. And through it all you will thank God, not only for those hidden purposes of mercy of which our knowledge of His love may make us sure in all things:but also for those clear fruits of His bounty which cannot ever be missed or forgotten: for the character, the heart, the goodness that His grace, wrought in Henry:for the wonderful happiness of so many years:for the helpfulness and dutifulness and promise of all your sons. And as you thank God for all these blessings,and even when your heart fails,He will help you in your trial and sorrow and wearinessI am very unworthy to speak at all of His helpbut indeed I am very sure of its sufficiency: there is nothing lacking, on His side.1 [Note: Francis Paget, Bishop of Oxford, 220.]

What mortal mind can apprehend the sufficiency of the outgoings of the eternal? Who understands the sufficiency of the sea? Who knows its multitudinous life? How vast and wonderful it is! Who knows the richness of the earth, the mother and nurse of all the seeds, the parent and cradle of all growths? Have you never been astonished at the wonderful richness of the earth? How, year after year, without failure, she yields through her bosom the wonderful growths that delight the world and that feed the world. Who knows the sufficiency of the orbs that make the day and that braid their glory into the robes of night? Who knows the overflowing of the clouds, the springs that never fail, the streams that never run dry, the rivers that flow on in their majestic current century after century, millennium after millennium, carrying forward without cessation or break their mighty tide? Yet these are only a few among the creatures of God, and the creatures that we can apprehend with our capacity. If this, then, be true of these creatures of God, what must we say of the Maker of them all?2 [Note: D. D. McLaurin.]

Just as a river that runs in a full clear current through the heart of a city yields an unfailing supply of water to each of its dwellings, and fills a vessel which a child may dip into its stream, because it gushes from its rocky cleft high up near the mountain peak where the rain-clouds gather and drip, or the perpetual snows distil their ice-cold dews into its basin; so in like manner the grace that is in Christ, the fulness of the Godhead, flows into and fills up all the emptiness of the human soul. Man till he has come to God is an infinite wantChrist is an infinite resource and fulfilment for that want. Man is fallenChrist lifts him up; he is fetteredChrist sets him free; he is guiltyChrist is righteousness; he is ignorantChrist is wisdom; he is powerlessChrist is strength. And after he has come to God, his earthly life is full of yearning and striving, of lofty reach and heavenward endeavour, the powers of an immortal nature unfolding within him and seeking their true sphere of exercise, its affections climbing upwards and seeking their true centre of rest. For all upward longings and pure aspirations there is satisfaction in Christ. In him all noble powers find full employment, all holy affections complete repose. Mans weak, imperfect, sinful nature, conscious of its fall and seeking to rise to God again, finds in Christ all needful resources for raising it up and guiding it onwards to holiness and glory. In the second Adam the whole family of the redeemed stand faultless before God, perfect and entire, wanting nothing. They are complete in Him.1 [Note: J. Hamilton Memoir and Remains of the Rev. James D. Burns, M. A., 363.]

He bore the sin!

Alone He bore the load;

For us He drank the cup,

Jesus, the Son of God.

He bore the sin!

He paid the debt!

He paid it with His blood;

Each claim He satisfied,

All that we owe to God.

He paid the debt!

He made the peace!

He silences each fear;

He is Himself the peace,

By blood He brings us near.

He made the peace!

He did the work!

The law He magnified;

Our lifetimes failure He

Hath gloriously supplied.

He did the work!

The foe He fought!

Our foe and His He slew;

He leads us in the war,

Almighty to subdue.

The foe He fought!

He won the life!

Life by His death He won;

That life He giveth us,

The glory and the crown.

He won the life!1 [Note: Horatius Bonar.]

(1) We are made full in Him as the Revealer of Divine truth. This is one aspect of the fulness upon which the sacred writer dwells. The Church at Coloss was in danger from heretical teaching, and their refuge from that danger was in the fulness of Christ. Their reply to all the wild speculations of the mysticism around them was found here. We are complete in him. In him are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden. This I say, that no one may delude you with persuasiveness of speech. He exhorted them to take heed lest any one should make spoil of them through his philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ; for in him dwelleth all the fulness.

Ancient mariners sailed by the light of the stars; from the stormy bosom of the ocean they looked to the distant heavens for direction; while the firmament was clear they were safe, but when clouds intervened dangers beset their path. So, taking the words of the Lord Jesus for your guidance, you shall cross the sea of life in safety and reach the heavenly shore; but if you allow human philosophy, science, or tradition, if you permit priesthoods, ceremonies, or sacraments to come between your mind and the light of His teaching, your course must be perilous, and your progress uncertain, for He, and He only, is the way, the truth, and the life.2 [Note: T. Jones, The Divine Order, 30.]

(2) The chasm between man and God has been bridged over in Him. If we descend at times to the darkest depths, He anticipates us there; He weighs every sigh; He interprets every tear; He helps every desire Godward in its upward flightand if in our more jubilant and ecstatic moments we cherish bright visions of future bliss and glory, He still anticipates us there, saying, Come up hither. The ladder of mediation is complete; there are no gaps left. Every rung is there in our ascent to God. The veil of the Temple has been rent in twain; the way to the Holiest is opened wide for the mitred dignitary and for the most obscure of Christs brethren as well. And in our approach to God we are made full in Him.

Pilate, when he set Christ before the crowd which surrounded his palace on that dread day, cried out Ecce Homo, Behold the man! This might be echoed round all the worldBehold the Man!the true Man, the One we should ever aim to be like, and whose perfection becomes ours by faith in His holy Name. He is the Mediator of the New Covenant that stands between God and man. Faith in Him contains the germ of the new life, and the new love required. It is only a germa small thing, it is truebut Christ will make it grow till it becomes like His own. When we live in this spirit we shall come to understand the words of the Apostle, Ye are complete in him.1 [Note: W. Adamson.]

(3) We are made full in Him as regards our Christian character. Christianity is not the perfect religion in the sense of being revealed as a finished, rounded, symmetrical whole. It is not perfect in the sense of a closed circle, or a plastic form, which can be altered in nothing without being spoiled. It is not a perfection of proportion, of harmony, of symmetry. That is the Greek, pagan idea of perfection; whereas in Christianity we enter the perfect life maimed. The pagan idea of perfection is balance, or harmony of parts with each other. It is self-contained and self-poised. The Christian idea is faith, or harmony of relations with the will of God. It is self-devoted, complete in Him; the perfection not of finish but of faith. It is perfect, not because it presents us with perfection, but because it puts us in a perfect attitude to perfection.

Christian perfection is something which we are put in the perfect way to realize, in the sense that we realize a living, moving ideal of character and life. It is not something with which we are presented; it is not even something we are to believe; but it is something into which we are redeemed. The perfection of Christianity is not even in the ideal of perfection it offers, but in the power of perfection it implants; not in its ideal of a Son of God, but in the power it gives, with the Son of God, to become sons of God by believing in His name.

From every fresh manifestation of our self-incompleteness, we may retreat under cover to this gracious assurance, Ye are complete in him. We may sink into Christ when we cannot rise to Him. And thus we shall be made strong and victorious through apparent defeat, as again and again

The steps of Faith

Fall on the seeming void and find

The rock beneath.1 [Note: A. J. Gordon, In Christ, 118.]

Dear Lord, it is better that I

Should go through the world with one eye,

If Thou, Light and Guide, be but nigh.

It is better, O Saviour divine,

To lose this right hand of mine,

If Thou hold but the other in Thine.

Thou only canst make me complete;

And to limp by Thy side were more sweet,

Than walking alone on both feet.2 [Note: J. A. Torrey.]

3. We must be in vital connexion with Christ, if we are to be filled with His fulness. The Apostle goes on and in him ye are made full, which sets forth two things as true in the inward life of Christians, namely, their living incorporation in and union with Christ, and their consequent participation in His fulness. Every one of us may enter into that most real and close union with Jesus Christ by the power of continuous faith in Him. So may we be grafted into the Vine, and builded into the Rock. If thus we keep our hearts in contact with His heart, and let Him lay His lip on our lips, He will breathe into us the breath of His own life, and we shall live because He lives, and in our measure, as He lives. All the fulness of God is in Him, that from Him it may pass into us. We might start back from such bold words if we did not remember that the same Apostle who here tells us that the fulness dwells in Jesus, crowns his wonderful prayer for the Ephesian Christians with that daring petition, that ye may be filled with all the fulness of God. The treasure was lodged in the earthen vessel of Christs manhood that it might be within our reach. According to our need it will shape itself, being to each what the moment most requireswisdom, or strength, or beauty, or courage, or patience. Out of it will come whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, as Rabbinical legends tell us that the manna tasted to each man like the food he wished for most.

An aspiration is a joy for ever, a possession as solid as a landed estate, a fortune which we can never exhaust, and which gives us year by year a revenue of pleasurable activity. To have many of these is to be spiritually rich.1 [Note: R. L. Stevenson, El Dorado.]

Oh, Bearer of the key

That shuts and opens with a sound so sweet

Its turning in the wards is melody,

All things we move among are incomplete

And vain until we fashion them in Thee!2 [Note: Dora Greenwell, The Reconciler.]

What religion desires is not a truncated piece of a man, but a whole man, healthy, happy, natural, and free. Religion is not a January thaw of sentimentalism, but a clear, vigorous, frosty morning, which stirs ones energy and steadies ones nerves. Religion means not less life but more life, not subtraction of power but multiplication of power, not emptiness but fulness. I remember hearing it said of Phillips Brooks that he seldom preached a sermon without using in it the word richness, and it was certainly a word most characteristic of him. Life to that great prophet was ineffably rich, and to realize and share the richness of experience, to accept the rich privilege of life with a chaste body, an alert mind, a sensitive imagination, and a steady will,that was but to repeat the great promise of this passage, Ye are complete in him.3 [Note: F. G. Peabody, Mornings in the College Chapel, 2nd Ser., 159.]

Surely He cometh, and a thousand voices

Call to the saints and to the deaf are dumb;

Surely He cometh, and the earth rejoices

Glad in His coming who hath sworn, I come.

This hath He done, and shall we not adore Him?

This shall He do, and can we still despair?

Come, let us quickly fling ourselves before Him,

Cast at His feet the burthen of our care.

Flash from our eyes the glow of our thanksgiving,

Glad and regretful, confident and calm,

Then thro all life and what is after living

Thrill to the tireless music of a psalm.

Yea, thro life, death, thro sorrow and thro sinning

He shall suffice me, for He hath sufficed:

Christ is the end, for Christ was the beginning,

Christ the beginning, for the end is Christ.1 [Note: F. W. H. Myers, Saint Paul.]

Complete in Christ

Literature

Burns (J. D.), Memoir and Remains, 363.

Burrell (D. J.), The Unaccountable Man, 302.

Bushnell (H.), Sermons on Living Subjects, 96.

Forsyth (P. T.), Christian Perfection, 51.

Jones (T.), The Divine Order, 29.

Liddon (H. P.), Bampton Lectures, 321.

Peabody (F. G.), Mornings in the College Chapel, ii. 157.

Price (A. C.), Fifty Sermons, iii. 153.

Vaughan (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), vii. (1869), No. 695.

Christian World Pulpit, xv. 284 (Palmer); xxxiii. 344 (Dykes); lii. 359 (Adamson); lxxxi. 132 (Berry).

Expositor, 3rd Ser., iii. 46 (Maclaren).

Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible

in: Col 2:2, Col 2:3, Col 1:19, Isa 7:14, Mat 1:23, Joh 10:30, Joh 10:38, Joh 14:9, Joh 14:10, Joh 14:20, Joh 17:21, 2Co 5:19, 1Ti 3:16, Tit 2:13, 1Jo 5:7, 1Jo 5:20

bodily: Luk 3:22, Joh 1:14, Joh 2:21

Reciprocal: Exo 15:2 – an habitation Exo 23:21 – my name Lev 8:35 – the tabernacle Deu 12:5 – habitation 1Ch 17:12 – He shall 1Ch 23:25 – that they may dwell in Jerusalem 2Ch 6:20 – put thy name 2Ch 7:16 – eyes Psa 68:18 – for men Eze 37:27 – tabernacle Eze 48:8 – the sanctuary Hag 2:7 – I will fill Zec 8:3 – dwell Mat 12:6 – General Mat 23:21 – and by Luk 14:22 – and yet Joh 1:16 – of his Joh 3:34 – for God Joh 14:6 – the truth Joh 16:15 – General Joh 17:10 – all Joh 17:23 – made Rom 1:20 – Godhead Eph 1:23 – fulness Eph 3:19 – that ye Eph 4:10 – that he 2Th 1:12 – and ye 1Jo 2:5 – hereby Rev 13:6 – and his Rev 21:22 – the Lamb

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

(Col 2:9.) . This is an irresistible argument. Any system not after Christ must be human and wrong-for in Him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. The noun has been fully explained under Eph 1:23. The substantive is an abstract term, like Deity, in which God is viewed in essence rather than personality. The word is quite different in meaning from , Rom 1:20 -a term which describes quality rather than being. The words differ as divinitas and deitas-divineness and Deity; or, as the Germans express it-Gttlichkeit and Gottheit. The Syriac uses the expressive term . The fulness of the Godhead is a fulness filled up by it-is that Godhead in all its native attributes and prerogatives. And it is the whole fulness-not one cycle of Divine perfections-a single cluster of Divine properties-not a partial possession of isolated glories-nor a handful of meted and fractional resources, but the entire assemblage of all in existence and character that constitutes the Divinity. What He is, and as He is, in being, mode, and manifestation, dwells in Christ. See under Col 1:15. One blushes to mention the Socinian misinterpretation, which so reduces this sublime statement as to make it signify merely, that the whole will of God was manifested by Him-an attempt which Calovius well names detorsio mera. Nor are we less confounded with the capricious and baseless exposition of Heinrichs, Baumgarten-Crusius, Schleusner, Gerhard, and Junker, that can mean the church gathered without distinction from all nations, and that the apostle intends to say-that the whole church has its existence, wellbeing, or instruction in Christ. Nor is the singularly ungrammatical exegesis of some early expositors less wonderful-that in Him means in the church, and that in this church dwells the fulness of the Godhead. Bhr ably refutes the view of Noesselt, which, though a little more ingenious than the Socinian hypothesis, does not essentially differ from it in result. The sense naturally suggested by the terms is the correct one. Nor are we to search for any recondite meaning, as if must be taken in a Gnostic sense; or as if in the verb there were a necessary allusion to the so-named Shechinah-in which dwelt the Divinity. Whatever be the polemical reference, the ordinary meaning of the verb cannot be set aside, as denoting actual and prolonged habitation.

The mode of this mysterious inhabitation is declared to be -in a bodily form, for such is the first and plain meaning of the adverb. Other and vaguer ideas have been attached to it. It is a necessary result of the interpretation which takes to signify the church, that it must regard as intense and hyperbolical, and therefore we have the dilution of a quasi. The church dwells in Christ, as if in a bodily form-as if it formed His body. But-

1. The least plausible hypothesis is that of Capellus and Heumann, who look upon the term as equivalent to , and as signifying altogether. Such a translation makes the clause tautological, for is already employed, and besides it cannot be borne out by any legitimate examples. Why resort to a rare and technical use of the word, as peculiar as in our familiar phrase, a body of divinity, meaning a full course of theological instruction?

2. Others, again, under the influence of the previous contrast between the law and the gospel, imagine an antithesis in the word, as if it stood in antagonism to . There was a symbolical residence in the temple, but an actual one in Christ Jesus. The polemical Augustine first broached the idea. Non ideo corporaliter quia corporeus est Deus, sed aut verbo translato usus est, tanquam in templo manufacto non corporaliter sed umbratiliter habitaverit, id est, praefigurantibus signis, nam illas omnes observationes umbras futurorum vocat, etiam ipso translato vocabulo, . . . . aut certe corporaliter dictum est, quia et in Christi corpore, quod assumpsit ex virgine, tanquam in templo habitat Deus.Augustine has been followed by Vatablus, a-Lapide, Grotius, Glassius, Hackspann, Vitringa, Rell, Crellius, Schoettgen, Noesselt, Michaelis, Bengel, and Bretschneider. But there is no such implied contrast in this verse as between and in Col 2:17, and there is therefore no just ground of departure from the common and absolute signification. Christ is held up as the grand centre and source of true philosophy, and the reason is that Godhead was incarnate in Him, and that therefore His claims are paramount, both in person and function. He is not only the Wonder of wonders in Himself, but creation and redemption-the two prime books of study-trace themselves to Him as their one author.

3. A large number of critics give to the meaning of essentialiter, that is, the Godhead dwells in Christ really, or in substance – . Names of high authority are leagued in favour of this interpretation. Theophylact and OEcumenius, and Isidore the Pelusiot, among the Fathers; Calvin, Beza, and Melancthon, among the reformers; with Steiger, Huther, Olshausen, and Usteri, among the more recent expositors. The ground of this interpretation lies again in a supposed polemical contrast, which certainly does not appear in the context. Melancthon says-est oppositum inhabitationi separabili ut habitat Deus in sanctis, that is, the union of Divinity with Christ is a personal union-not like the influential indwelling of God in a believing heart. Huther supposes such a contrast as this, that the Deity did not dwell in Christ as it dwelt in the old prophets who preceded Him. Olshausen again gives prominence to a Gnostic antagonism, as if the apostle meant to distinguish between a merely temporary influence of a higher spirit, and a permanent union of the Godhead-an idea as naturally brought out by giving to the adverb its usual signification. To fall back for defence upon any uses of the Hebrew word , H6795, is all but to surrender the cause. The Hebrew noun does signify ipse, but never in connection with persons-de rebus tantummodo, as Gesenius, sub voce, remarks. The noun does signify person in the New Testament, though Bhr denies it. Davenant says-the Hebrew put souls for persons, and the Greek put bodies; but the instances of the latter usage adduced by him will not bear him out; for in them there is usually distinct reference to the corporeal part of the person. In those instances in the New Testament in which appears to signify person, it is not only followed with a genitive of person, but there is always some special reason why the term should be so employed-some implied contrast, some contextual point, or some tacit reference to the body or external person. Thus, among the classics, it is appropriately used of soldiers and slaves, whose bodies are in special request. As in the New Testament it is used in connection with the eye, Mat 6:22; with marriage-a union characterized as one flesh, Eph 5:28; with the idea of death, Php 1:20; and the notion of a living sacrifice, in which the dead bodies of victims were offered, Rom 12:1. Indeed, in Homeric usage always denotes a corpse. So that, absolutely, the noun does not signify person; and such a sense is never given to the cognate adjective or adverb. This exegesis seems to have arisen from an attempt to define by it the nature of that union which subsisted between Divinity and humanity in the person of Christ.

4. The last and best interpretation is that which takes in its literal and only meaning-in a bodily shape, and not as Theodoret paraphrases- . Such is also the view of Calovius, Estius, Storr, De Wette, Bhr, Bhmer, and Meyer. Yet Steiger calls it-abgeschmackt-insipid, and Olshausen regards it as tautological, because the words in Him occur in the same clause. But the words in Him are the general reference, and the adverb specifies the mode in which He possessed the Divine fulness. The fulness of the Godhead was embodied in Him, or dwelt in Him-in no invisible shape, and by no unappreciable contact. It assumed a bodily form. It abode in Him as a man. It made its residence the humanity of Jesus. Divinity was incarnated in Christ. It shrank not from taking upon it our nature, and realizing the prophetic title-Immanuel, God with us. The same idea is contained in Joh 1:14-the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us. The Logos, yet unfleshed, was God, and was with God, Divine and yet distinct from the Father; but the fulness of Godhead was only spiritually within Him. Now, it has made its abode in his humanity without consuming it or deifying it, or changing any of its essential properties. It hungered and it ate, it thirsted and it drank, it grieved and it wept, it watched and prayed, it wearied itself and it lay down, it was exhausted and it slept, it bled and it died. That body so filled and honoured was no phantom, as many even in the apostolic age imagined, for it had flesh and bones, and, after its resurrection, it bore the scar of its recent wounds. It was therefore no vehicle which Divinity assumed by any singular process, but in the same way as the children become partakers of flesh and blood, so did Christ partake of them. He was born as children are born, and the infant was wrapt in swaddling bands. He was nursed as children are nursed, for butter and honey should he eat. His young soul grew in wisdom as His physical frame grew in stature. It was easily seen that Godhead dwelt in that humanity, for glimpses of its glory flashed again and again through its earthly covering. The radiance was vailed, but never entirely eclipsed. His disciples beheld His glory, the glory indeed of the only begotten of the Father. Peter felt impressed by it, and urged his own sinfulness as the reason why intercourse should be suspended; while Thomas, under the impulse of wonder and faith, cried out-My Lord, and my God. Jesus prayed for others, and bade others pray on their own behalf; but He never solicited their prayers for Himself. When suppliants bowed the knee to Him, He never said-See thou do it not; never thought it to be idolatry on their part to offer Him homage, or felt it to be robbery on His part to accept it. His second coming is the glorious appearing of the great God. At His baptism and transfiguration, the voice from the excellent glory hailed Him as God’s beloved Son. He detected the inmost thoughts and enmities of the multitude, for he possessed a species of intuition which lies far above humanity. He knew what was in man. The wind bloweth where it listeth, but it listened to Him; and He who trod upon the waves of the Sea of Galilee, made them a path which God marks as His own. He wrought miracles at discretion, and wielded at pleasure the prerogative of forgiving sins. He assumed a co-ordinate power with the Father, and claimed with Him an equal right of dispensing with those obligations of the sabbatic law, which had been enacted for men by Divine authority. The most ordinary eye discovered something extraordinary about Him. The crowd that heard Him said-He speaketh as one having authority; for He spoke in the tones of conscious Divinity. We have seen strange things to-day, shouted the spectators; and no wonder, those strange things were the characteristic acts of the strangest of Beings-the only Being who is God-man. A perfection not of earth belonged to His nature; for the prince of this world, who finds so much to work upon in common humanity, could find nothing in Him; and the demons, whose appetite for evil leads them ever to detect it and vaunt over it, acknowledged Him to be the Holy One of God. Referring to His death as the destruction of a temple, He asserted Himself able in three days to raise it again-a task that could be achieved only by the Divine Creator and Life-giver. While He walked on earth, He spoke of Himself as one who is in heaven. Born centuries after Abraham, He yet pre-existed the great father of His nation. Lowly and humble-the son of Mary, He was the Image of the invisible God; and so close was His likeness to Him who sent Him, that He said-He who hath seen me, hath seen the Father. And the apostle uses the present tense-the Divine fulness still dwells in Him. It was no temporary union, but an abiding possession. His glorious body has in it the same fulness of the Godhead, as had the body of His humiliation. The mode of inhabitation the apostle does not specify. What may be inferred is, that the union is a personal union of His natures-not a simple concord of will, so that there are two persons; nor such an absorption of the one element into the other, that there is only one nature. We know not whether Docetic views prevailed at that early period in the Colossian church, but it is certain that Christ was undervalued and His person misunderstood, in the false philosophy. Therefore the apostle affirms, in this brief but weighty clause, the great mystery of His mediatorial nature-the personal union in Him of Divinity and manh ood. Any philosophy not after Christ, must be earthly and delusive. It has missed the central truth-is amused with the stars, but forgetful of the sun. For in Him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily; and, with singular congruity, the apostle adds-

Fuente: Commentary on the Greek Text of Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians and Phillipians

Col 2:9. Godhead is from THEOTES, which Thayer defines, “deity; Godhead,” then explains it to mean, “the state of being God.” Bodily refers to the form in which Jesus appeared while on earth, so that the entire fulness or virtue of the Deity was represented in Him. That is why Jesus said to Philip, “he that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (Joh 14:9). Not that Jesus was the Father personally, but he was a full representation of God in human form.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

The Apologists Bible Commentary

Colossians 2

9For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form

C o m m e n t a r y The Apostle Paul has just cautioned the Colossian believers not to be taken captive by the philosophies and traditions of men which are not grounded in Christ (v. 18). There are various views about the so-called “Colossian Heresy” against which Paul was writing. It is possible that there was a specific heresy (so Calvin, Dibelius, Moule, etc.) or Paul may have been writing more generally (so Hooker). What is clear is that Paul is unequivocally asserting Christ’s supremacy over whatever teachings might take the Colossians captive – teachings not grounded in Christ. In verse 9, Paul gives the first of two reasons why Christ is superior to any human philosophy or tradition (verse 10a contains the second): “For” (Greek hoti with a causal sense: “because”) in Christ all the fullness of Deity dwells bodily. Christ is superior to the teachings of men and the elemental “powers” of the universe because in His incarnation, every aspect of the nature of the true God – all His attributes and power – found in Christ’s body a congenial and permanent home. This verse – perhaps more than any other verse in Paul’s writing – teaches that Christ was God in the flesh. The word translated “Deity” signifies the “essence of being God” – what makes God, God (see Grammatical Analysis, below). And it was not a mere quality or limited sub-set of attributes – for Paul tells us that “all the fullness” of Deity dwelled in Christ. And this fullness did not merely sojourn for a time in Christ’s consciousness, but rather “dwelled” there (Greek katoikeo: “to take up permanent residence”). It is a timeless present tense verb (Harris, Colossians , p. 98) – “continues to live.” And this dwelling was “bodily,” in Christ’s physical body. This points to the incarnation, surely, but also to the resurrected Christ as well, who is now our mediator, the man Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 2:5). As Robertson puts it: “The fullness of the Godhead … dwells ‘in the once mortal, now glorified body of Christ'” (RWP ).

G r a m m a t i c a l A n a l y s i s`oti en autw katoikei pan to plhrwma thV qeothtoV swmatikwV hOTI EN AUT KATOIKEI PAN TO PLRMA TS THEOTTOS SMATIKS For in him dwells all the fullness of the Deity bodily KATOIKE (2730) Live, dwell, reside, settle (down) (BAGD , Thayer ) More technically used, the verb refers to the permanent “residents” of a town or village, as distinguished from those “dwelling as strangers” or “sojourners” (Moulton & Milligan ) Verb Indicative Present Active (Friberg ) The present indicative indicates an action occurring while the speaker is speaking. PAS (3956) The whole, all (the) (BAGD , Thayer ) PLRMA (4138) Sum total, fulness, even (super)abundance (BAGD ) Fulness, abundance (Thayer ) The plrma statements in Colossians present the full unity of the person and work of God and Christ, yet in such as way that neither the distinctness of person nor monotheism is imperiled. The differences between Ephesians and Colossians show that plrma is not here a technical term, and the fact that plrs or plro may be used instead supports this conclusion. In part the plrma sayings relate to Christ’s headship of the church. From him as the bearer of the divine fullness (col. 1:18ff) vital powers flow into the church, so that he may be said to fill it (TDNT ). THEOTES (2320) Deity, divinity, used as an abstract noun for qeoV (BAGD ) Deity, i.e., the state of being God, Godhead: Col 2:9…Syn. qeothV, qeiothV: qeot. deity differs from qeiot. divinity as essence differs from quality or attribute (Thayer ) Divinity … The one God, to whom all deity belongs, has given this fullness of deity to the incarnate Christ. (TDNT ) Deity, divine nature, divine being…’all the fullness of divine nature’ Col 2:9…The expression ‘divine nature’ may be rendered in a number of languages as ‘just what God is like’ or ‘how God is’ or ‘what God is’ (Louw & Nida ). Louw & Nida do not semantically distinguish theotes, theiotes, and theios, treating them each as synonymous with “diving nature” as they define it here. SMATIKS (4985) Bodily, corporeally … Col 2:9 (prob. to be understood fr. 2:17 [cf. swma 4] as=in reality, not symbolically) (BAGD ) Bodily, corporeally … yet denoting his exalted and spiritual body, visible only to the inhabitants of heaven, Col 2:9, where see Meyer [Bp. Lightft.] (Thayer ) Bodily-wise, corporeally, in concrete actuality (Moulton & Milligan ) The smatiks in this statement denotes the corporeality in which God encounters us in our world, i.e., the real humanity of Jesus, not a humanity that is a mere cloak for deity (TDNT ). Pertaining to a physical body … ‘In him all the fullness of deity dwells bodily’ or ‘in physical form’ Col 2:9. It is also possible to interpret smatiks in Col 2:9 as meaning ‘in reality,’ that is to say ‘not symbolically’ (Louw & Nida )

O t h e r V i e w s C o n s i d e r e dJehovah’s Witnesses Latter Day Saints Jehovah’s Witnesses Greg Stafford offers a comprehensive argument against the traditional view of Colossians 2:9 (Stafford , pp. 152-160). He suggests that Trinitarians read too much into this verse – and the word theotes in particular – and that this verse need not mean anything beyond the fullness of a divine quality dwelling in Christ – not by Christ’s inherent nature, but by the Father’s decree. I shall examine Mr. Stafford’s key points, below: objection: Mr. Stafford writes: Rhodes also objects to the translation of Colossian’s 2:9 in the NWT, stating: “Colossians 2:9 is not saying that Jesus has mere divine qualities. Rather, it is saying that the absolute ‘fullness of Deity’ dwells in Christ in bodily form” (Rhodes , p. 81). In support of his interpretation Rhodes cites several scholars whose views are similar to his. For example, he says: “Greek scholar J. H. Thayer – whose Greek lexicon is called ‘comprehensive’ by the Watchtower Society – says that the Greek word in Colossians 2:9 refers to ‘deity, that is the state of being God, Godhead'” (IBID , pp. 81-82). First, it should be noted that the words Rhodes attributes to J. H. Thayer are not the words of J. H. Thayer! They are the words of Karl Grimm, the Lutheran lexicographer whose work Thayer translated from Latin to English…Of course, the reason our critics like to attribute words to Thayer is because they operate under the questionable assumption that Thayer was a Unitarian. Thus, they argue, “Well, even this Unitarian, one who would tend to be sympathetic to your view, argues for a Trinitarian understanding of Colossians 2:9! [See Martin, The Kingdom of the Cults, p. 79 – note 75] (Stafford , pp. 152-153). Response: Rhodes, indeed, mentions several scholars who support the consensus view of theotoes, including Lightfoot, (“The totality of the divine powers and attributes”), Trench (“all the fullness of absolute Godhead…He was, and is, absolute and perfect God”), Bengal (“not merely the Divine attributes, but the Divine Nature itself”), Moule (“as strong as possible; Deity, not only Divinity”), Reymond (“the being of the very essence of deity”), Warfield (“the very deity of God, that which makes God God, in all its completeness”), and Thayer. These scholars do indeed support Rhodes’ views and quite strongly. Mr. Stafford is correct that the words Rhodes attributes to Thayer were originally Grimm’s. However, not only does Thayer translate them without contradictory comment, he adds the following: “Syn. qeothV, qeiothV: qeot. deity differs from qeiot. divinity as essence differs from quality or attribute” He then refers the reader to two of the other scholars Rhodes lists: Lightfoot and Trench. Thus, Thayer clearly believed Grimm’s definition to be correct. Rhodes fundamental point is that the ‘comprehensive’ Grimm-Thayer lexicon (in addition to the other scholars he cites) provides strong support for the meaning of theotes he advocates, a point which Mr. Stafford does not contest. objection: Mr. Stafford writes: Really, though, considering the use of theotes in other Greek sources, one would be justified in defining it as “the quality of being a god” (Broyles , p. 224). Especially so in view of the OT concept of God…and in view of the fact that God gives his Son a divine nature (Stafford , p. 153, note 73). Response: One would be justified in defining theotes in this way if one were referring to the pagan gods in classic Greek texts that Broyles was writing about: By qeoV the Greeks always meant an individual god – as qeoV zeuV- even if they were not always careful to have in mind any particular god….The plural means the individual gods taken collectively…In historical times the gods were conceived in human form, having human natures and passions, capricious and independent, not subject to old age and death, and powerful to an enormous degree. qeoteV is the quality of being such a god (Broyles , pp. 223 – 224). Broyles then quotes the same passage in Plutarch which Lightfoot, Trench, and others have used to illustrate the difference in semantic nuance between theotes and theitoes, that is, between essence and attributes (see Thayer’s definition of theotes in the Grammatical Analysis, above, and the discussion of theotes and theiotes, below). We may first note that Mr. Stafford’s quotation omits the word “such.” Broyles no more says that theotes may be defined as “the quality of being a god” than he says that theos may be defined as “a god having a human nature.” Broyles says that theos refers to pagan gods when used by pagans, and that theotes is the quality of being such a god. What type of god? A personal god. An individual. Broyles argues that theotes emphasizes the individual personality, rather than the “inscrutable Deity behind all gods” (IBID , p. 225), which Broyles sees as the pagan usage of to theion. However, when dealing with Paul’s use of the term, Broyles recognizes that Paul is not referring to pagan gods: It is qeoteV that Paul uses in Colossians 2:9…”In him the fulness of godhead dwells embodied.” Paul’s diction specifies the divine personality as opposed to the divine properties (IBID , p. 224). Thus, in this context, theotes refers to the quality of being the one God. Broyles concludes that centuries of development among Greeks made theotes, to theion, and theiotes “suitable for expressing the ‘god-ness’ in Christ and the mystery of the infinite-personal God” (IBID , p. 229). He does not define theotes as “the quality of being a god” in the way Mr. Stafford implies; instead, he notes that, like theos, theotes arose in a pagan culture and was used to refer to “a god” in that context. Broyles’ article actually supports the argument Mr. Stafford is arguing against – namely, that there is a distinction between theotes and theiotes, and that in Paul’s usage, the former signifies the full measure “godhead” (which Broyles defines as “Deity,” “Godhood,” or “God-ness” – the quality of being the one, true God) that dwells in Christ bodily. objection: Mr. Stafford writes: The term theotes (of which theotetos in Col 2:9 is a genitive flexion) closely resembles, in spelling, the term Paul uses in Romans 1:20, namely theiotes (NWT: “Godship”). James White asserts a distinction between these two terms (theotes and theiotes) such that theotes (in Col 2:9) is “different from the weaker term used at Romans 1:20” (theiotes) [White , p. 85]. White is apparently not aware of the extensive study by H.S. Nash , who a century ago demonstrated quite convincingly that the two terms theiotes and theotes do not have the distinction in meaning attributed to them by White (Stafford , pp. 153-154). Response: White, like Rhodes, rests his argument on a number of scholarly sources, including the Grimm-Thayer lexicon (White, by the way, makes the distinction between Grimm’s words and Thayer’s, which Stafford demands of Rhodes), Trench, and Warfield. White may well know of Nash’s study, as do J. Stafford Wright (NIDNTT ) and Gerhard Schneider (EDNT ). Both Wright and Schneider reference Nash’s study, yet advocate the distinction in meaning argued by White and others. The distinction may be inferred from BAGD , which defines theiotes as “divinity, divine nature” but theotes as “deity, divinity” (); and also from the TDNT , which defines theiotes as “divinity,” but theotes as “divinity, Godhead.” Both lexicons refer to Nash’s study. Though they perhaps regard the two terms as more synonymous than do Wright and Schneider, nonetheless, BAGD and TDNT both suggest that the two terms inhabit somewhat different semantic ranges, with theotes shading more towards “deity” (). Thus, if modern lexicographers who are familiar with Nash’s work draw a semantic distinction between theiotes and theotes, White cannot be faulted (). We may, however, fault Mr. Stafford for stacking the deck – resting his entire response to White’s point on Nash’s article, while failing to consider contrary evidence from the lexical sources mentioned. Mr. Stafford might have at least mentioned EDNT , since he quotes its definition of eudokeo just a few pages later (Stafford , p. 160). But what of Nash’s article? Does it prove that theotes and theiotes are completely synonymous and that the former may convey nothing more than a “divine quality” and not the essence of Godhood, as Trinitarians argue? Nash argues that theiotes and theotes began life as completely synonymous abstract nouns just prior to NT times. He provides examples from various extra-Biblical texts which, he believes, demonstrate that the two terms were used more or less interchangeably until several hundred years after NT times, when theotes gradually superceded theiotes because of it’s etymological derivation from theos, which made it a more suitable term in Christian usage. It should be emphasized that Nash does not suggest that theotes may not signify deity in the traditional sense; he rather argues that theiotes may also be used in this same sense (). Nash acknowledges that there is a subtle distinction between the terms, with theotes being more logically precise (), but he strenuously argues that the theological distinction between natural and revealed religion which some scholars – notably Trench – derive from the semantic distinction is anachronistic when applied to Paul’s usage (). Even granting Nash his argument, it is clear from the examples he provides of Christian usage, theiotes and theotes are used exclusively to denote the deity/divinity of the true God, and never is used of secondary “divine” beings (). When Stafford quotes Nash to suggest that theotes may simply signify a general sort of “divinity” shared by lesser gods, he is doing so with Nash’s argument from pagan usage: But the reference to the “fullness” of divine attributes dwelling in Christ does not necessarily make him equal with God, and certainly does not imply a Trinitarian concept of deity. Nash points to several uses of theotes in philosophical literature where theotes is actually used of demons who mediate between gods and men. In one of his citations, Nash notes that “the rank of the deities in question, at the highest, is not above that of a demi-god, yet [theotes] is the term used [Nash , p. 12]. So the term is not elsewhere restricted in its application to the highest god or gods of pagan pantheons (Stafford , p. 158, emphasis added). Of course pagan philosophers may ascribe deity to lesser gods or demons, but they could also ascribe theos to these gods as well. The issue is not what referents the words theotes and theiotes may modify, but rather the sense the two words may convey – deity vs divinity in the traditional view. In any event, Nash’s examples of Christian usage make it clear that when used by a Christian writer, theotes refers to the deity belonging to the one God alone. The context of Colossians 2:9 makes it clear that the one God is in view – as Mr. Stafford himself argues: “For God to allow the fullness of His divine attributes and qualities to reside in Christ fits perfectly with Christ’s mediatorial and reconciliatory role in God’s purpose (Stafford , p. 159). Thus, by Mr. Stafford’s own argument, what resides in Christ bodily is all the fullness of the “attributes and qualities” of the one God. There is nothing in Nash’s article that suggests that theotes in Colossians 2:9 has the lesser meaning for which Mr. Stafford argues. It signifies deity – and all the fullness of it. objection: Mr. Stafford writes: Those who attempt to create a situation whereby Trinitarianism is made to agree with Colossians 2:9 try to disassociate what is said in 2:9 from what is said in 1:19. The reason for this is not hard to find. Colossians 1:19 tells us, “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him” (NIV). The Greek word translated “pleased” is eudokew (eudokeo). In the Word Biblical Commentary we are told that the verb ‘be pleased (eudokew ) which often appears in the OT to denote the good pleasure of God (ps 44:3; 147:11; 149:4) is particularly used to denote divine election (O’Brien, p. 52, emphasis added)….The Scriptures will not sustain the view that Almighty God’s powers and attributes are something contingent upon the “will” or “decree” of another (Stafford , pp. 159-160). Response: I agree with Mr. Stafford on three points: 1) Colossians 1:19 and 2:9 are speaking about the same thing; 2) the implied subject of eudoke is “God” (NIV) or “the Father” (NASB); and 3) that Almighty God’s deity is not dependent upon the “will” or “decree” of another. In reference to point 3, though, I will note that in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, the Father is seen as the ‘source’ of deity for both the Son and Spirit, and this formulation is considered to be orthodox, for the Son and Spirit share equally with the Father in the divine nature (). Thus, even if Mr. Stafford is correct and we are to take Paul to be teaching that the Son derives His deity from the Father, this does not – in and of itself – present an insurmountable problem for the Trinity. A simpler solution to the problem Mr. Stafford raises, however, is found in the context of Colossians 1:19 itself and the implications of it’s thematic link with 2:9. Paul moves from speaking about the pre-existent Son of God in verses 15-17 to the incarnate and exalted Son in verses 18 – 20. Thus, when Paul speaks of the fullness dwelling in Christ, it is most natural to understand the reference to be to the indwelling of God’s fullness in Jesus of Nazareth, who – by divine election and at the Father’s good pleasure – was Emmanuel (“God with us”). Mr. Stafford argues that we should understand the fullness in verse 2:9 in light of the fullness in 1:19, and I agree with him (). But the opposite is also true: we should understand the fullness in 1:19 in light of 2:9. In 2:9, the fullness of deity dwells in Christ bodily. As Mr. Stafford notes: “It is unclear whether we should take the references to the dwelling of the ‘fullness’ of theotes in Colossians 1:19 and 2:9 as referring to the historical person of Christ while he lived on the earth, or after his resurrection…It may be that we should take the references as beginning with his sojourn in the flesh on earth and continuing after his ascent to heaven” (Stafford , pp. 154 – 155). Thus, even by Mr. Stafford’s own reasoning, the good pleasure of the Father was that His Son should dwell permanently in the physical body of Jesus of Nazareth. Mr. Stafford suggests that commentators who see the link between 1:19 and 2:9 probably do so “because they do not see the problem involved with eudoke” (Stafford , p. 160). The more likely reason is that there is no problem with eudoke. When we understand Paul’s reference to be to the incarnation, there is no dichotomy between Paul’s teaching and the Trinity. O’Brien, whom Mr. Stafford quotes with regard to eudoke, says: “God in all his divine essence and power had taken up residence in Christ” (O’Brien, Colossians Philemon, Word Biblical Commentary, p. 53), with the clear implication that Christ’s physical life on earth is in view. He is more explicit elsewhere: “Colossians 2:9 applies the words of the hymn to the Colossian situation, making clear how the entire fullness of deity dwells in Christ, that is, in bodily form by his becoming incarnate” (O’Brien, “Letter to the Colossians,” Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, p. 151).(10 ). This view is echoed by a number of other commentators (11 ). Colossians 2:9 presents one of the clearest declarations of Christ’s deity in the New Testament. Attempts to weaken the force of “deity” or to argue for Christ as a “functional” manifestation of God’s attributes and power must contend with Paul’s language – which, when read in context and with an appreciation for the meaning of each key term – exalts Christ as preeminent in all things, because in His physical body, all the fullness of the nature of God made a permanent and congenial home. I pray that all who read this will find Him. Soli Deo Gloria _________________________________________ Notes 1. The distinction is even clearer in the third edition of the Bauer, Danker, Arndt, and Gingrich Lexicon (BDAG ): theiotes: The quality or characteristic(s) pert. to deity, divinity, divine nature, divineness theotes: The state of being God, divine character/nature, deity, divinity See also Bauer’s Greek-German lexicon (Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich, Grieschish-deutsch Wrterbuch, 1958), which served as the basis of BAGD : theiotes: d. Gttlichkeit, d. gttliche Natur theotes: d. Gottheit, d. Gottsein Gttlichkeit means “divinity;” Gottheit means “deity, godhead.” Gottsein is literally “God-Being, God-Essence.” The same definitions are repeated in the most recent edition of Bauer’s Wrterbuch (Bauer and Aland, Grieschish-deutsch Wrterbuch, 1988). 2. Most lexicons define theiotes and theotes as meaning “divinity,” but recognize only theotes as meaning “deity” or “godhead.” While “deity” and “divinity” are synonyms in English (just as theiotes and theotes are in Greek), there is a difference in semantic range. The Oxford English Dictionary is helpful in demonstrating both the overlap and the distinction in meaning between the two terms: divinity (1) Character or quality of being divine; (2) a divine being, a god; (3) an object of adoration; (4) divine quality, virtue or power. Godlikeness deity (1) The estate or rank of a god, Godhood, the personality of a god, Godship; (2) the divine quality, character, or nature of God. Godhood, divinity, the divine nature and attributes, the Godhead; (3) the condition or state in which the Divine Being exists; (4) a divinity, a divine being, a god; (4) an object of worship; (5) a supreme being as creator of the universe. Notice that while each of the four definitions of “divinity” are also present among the definitions of “deity,” the same in not true for “deity.” “Deity” may signify the “estate or rank” or “personality” or “Godship” of a god. (#1). It may mean the “condition or state” of divine existence (#3). It is precisely these senses that White argues are contained within theotes and are lacking in theiotes, with strong concurrence from the modern lexicons cited. 3. Commentators who also acknowledge a distinction in meaning between the two terms include O’Brien (Colossians, Philemon, Word Biblical Commentary, p. 111-112); Lohse (Colossians and Philemon, p. 100); Boice (EBC ); Wright (Colossians and Philemon, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, p. 103); Hendriksen (Exposition of Colossians and Philemon, New Testament Commentary, p. 111); Bruce (The Epistles to the Colossians to Philemon, and to the Ephesians, The New International Commentary on the New Testament, p. 101);and Dunn (The Epsitles to the Colossians and to Philemon, A Commentary on the Greek Text, p. 151). Harris is more cautious, saying that “If there is a valid distinction between the two words” theotes signifies “deity;” theiotes “divinity” (Colossians , p. 98). Elsewhere, he writes: “Nash has subjected [the] traditional distinction to a penetrating analysis and concluded ‘that the two terms covered a common field, that they fought for existence, and that theotes triumphed'” (Jesus as God , p. 287, note 48). But in this view, Harris does not regard theotes as signifying anything less that absolute deity; he expresses the meaning of Col 2:9 as follows: “Jesus possesses all the divine essence and attributes” (Ibid, p. 288). 4. Nash notes that if the traditional view were correct, we should see it evidenced in the works of the Greek Fathers. Instead, he finds that Origen, Athanasius, Arius, Didymus, Eusebius, Theodore, and Chysostom all used theiotes and theotes interchangeably to refer to the deity of God the Father and of Christ (c.f., Nash , pp. 17-25). We may note here that the NWT renders theiotes in Rom 1:20 as “Godship” – clearly treating it as synonymous with “deity” – though the translators rendered theotes in Col 2:9 as “the divine quality.” If Mr. Stafford’s assertion is correct and there is no distinction in meaning between the terms, we may ask why the NWTTC chose to translate the two terms differently. 5. Nash says he “concedes” to the traditional view: “theotes possessed an inherent capacity for the expression of religious emotion, as well as logical precision, superior to the emotional and logical qualities of theiotes” (Nash , p. 28). 6. “The Rabbi in St. Paul was not at all likely to distinguish between the Being or Personality or Nature of God on the one side, and His attributes or majesty or glory on the other. And if the scholar in Paul did not travel that way, certainly the prophet in him, the creative Christian element, did not” (Nash , p. 5). 7. Nash notes that even Arius is not said to have done so by his opponents: “There is no hint that Arius drew any distinction between theotes and theiotes, but rather plainly suggested that Arius applied the word theiotes to the Father Himself. Asterius is soon after quoted to the same effect” (Nash, p. 17). 8. “Gregory of Nazianzus explains the position by saying, ‘The Three have one nature, viz. God, the ground of unity being the Father, out of Whom and towards Whom the subsequent Persons are reckoned’ (Or, 42, 15). While all subordinationism is excluded, the Father remains in the eyes of the Cappadocians the source, fountain-head or principle of the Godhead. Their thought (as we have already seen when discussing the Holy Spirit) that He imparts His being to the two other Persons, and so can be said to cause Them” (Kelly , pp. 264-265). 9. In response to James White’s discussion of Mr. Stafford’s view of Col 1:19 and 2:9 (White , p. 207, note 39), Mr. Stafford says: “There is nothing in the context of these two texts that should make us think Paul is using the same word in relation to Christ with two different senses (Stafford , p. 155, note 79). White’s point is that plrma tes theotikos (fullness of deity) defines plrma, whereas the other verses in which plrma appears, the fullness is not qualified by a genitive adjunct – and thus is undefined. While I understand Mr. White’s point, I respectfully disagree with him (but per contra, in support of White’s view, see Eadie, A Commentary on the Greek Text of the Epistle of Paul to the Colossians, p. 69). As Mr. Stafford notes: “It is actually uncommon in reading through different commentaries and articles that discuss issues connected with 1:19 and 2:9 to find a scholar who tries to disconnect what is said in the two passages” (Stafford , p. 160). 10. Even J.D.G. Dunn, who argues against the pre-existence of God’s Son in his Christology in the Making, sees the incarnation being virtually implicit in 1:19: “The object here is simply to claim that divine fullness is evident in Christ’s ministry on earth, above all in his death and resurrection, and that that is another way of explaining his preeminence in all things (1:18). The thought is not yet of incarnation, but it is more than inspiration; rather it is of an inspiration (in Greek, “God-possessed” – entheos, enthousiasmos) so complete (“all the fullness”) as to be merging into the idea of incarnation” (Dunn, The Epistles to the Colossians and To Philemon, A Commentary on the Greek Text, p. 102). 11. E.g., Harris (Colossians , p. 51); Matthew Henry (Concise Commentary ); Peake (Colossians, Expositor’s Greek Testament, p. 508); Bruce sees it as a reference to Christ’s exaltation (The Epistles to the Colossians to Philemon, and to the Ephesians, The New International Commentary on the New Testament, p. 72) as does MacArthur (Colossians & Philemon, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary, p. 52) and The Bible Knowledge Commentary ; H.C.G. Moule sees the immediate reference to the incarnation, but with implications for a timeless fullness (Colossians and Philemon Studies, p. 87). Latter Day Saints In support of the LDS view of a corporate “Godhead” comprised of three distinct Gods, Richard Hopkins offers the following comments on Colossians 2:9: objection: Mr. Hopkins argues as follows: The word God in the New Testament comes from the Greek word theos, which designates an “object of worship.” No Biblical text demands that this word refer to a singular Person or Being except when the word is used to identify a specific individual who bears that title. Thus, the Bible teaches that there are three entirely separate individuals who are so perfectly organized and aligned in will, purpose and thought that they may be referred to as “One.” They constitute a single, universal authority over all things, a single “God.” The term “God,” used of the Three collectively in this manner, is best rendered Godhead. That term is derived from Paul’s writings. He referred to theios (“the godhead” or “that which is divine”) in Acts 17:29, theiotes (“divinity”) in Rom 1:20, and theotes (“Deity”) in Col 2:9. The KJV translators wisely rendered all three of these words “Godhead,” and thereby correctly captured the sense of composite unity comprised in the Bible’s teaching about the oneness of God” (Hopkins , pp. 93-940, emphasis in original). Response: Mr. Hopkins concludes that the Bible teaches a composite unity of the “Godhead” (“Thus the Bible teaches…”) on the basis of an argument from silence (“No Biblical text demands…”). The fact that no Bible text may demand that theos refer to a single individual (which is itself a questionable assertion), this is not positive evidence that theos does, in fact, refer to the composite “Godhead,” as Mr. Hopkins understands the term. While theos may refer to any of the members of the Trinity individually, it is questionable that any occurrence of theos in the New Testament refers to “the Trinity” in either the Trinitarian or LDS sense (). To support his position, Mr. Hopkins would need to provide examples of theos in classic or Koine Greek in which it clearly refers to a collective of two or more gods. The standard Geek lexicons – both classical and Biblical – define theos as an individual God or god (). As Stephen Broyles notes: “By qeoV the Greeks always meant an individual god – as qeoV ZeuV – even if they were not always careful to have in mind any particular god” (). When Mr. Hopkins says that “Godhead” is the best definition of theios, theiotes, and theotes, (all meaning “divinity” or “deity,” as Mr. Hopkins correctly notes in his parenthetical definitions), he commits what D.A. Carson has termed the fallacy of “Semantic Anachronism” (). The word “Godhead” is an old Anglo-Saxon word meaning “deity” or “Godhood” (). The suffix -head (frequently spelled in middle English -hede or -hed) has been replaced in current English usage by -hood or -ness (e.g., “manhede” = “manhood;” “boldhede” = “boldness”). The older forms of these words slowly became obsolete, with the exception of Godhead (= “Godhood”) and maidenhead (= “maidenhood”). The translators of the KJV were actually using the same term that had been used by Wycliffe, Tyndale, and other English Bibles for over 200 years. While the term “Godhead” came to be virtually synonymous with “the Trinity” (and so a “composite unity” in Mr. Hopkins’ understanding of the term), it did not have this meaning for the KJV translators (let alone Wycliffe or Tyndale), and it is only in later creedal statements and confessions that it began to take on the meaning it has today. Mr. Hopkins has assumed the modern, technical definition of “Godhead,” rather than the definition it had at the time the first English Bibles were translated. When the translators rendered Colossians 2:9 as “for in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily,” they meant “all the fullness of the Deity” – the plenitude of the qualities or character of being God. If we follow Mr. Hopkins exegesis to its logical conclusion, Jesus would have all the fullness of the three Gods of the LDS trinity in Him bodily – to paraphrase Joseph Smith: “a strange God anyhow” (). _________________________________________ Notes 1. So Harris: “In the NT qeoV regularly refers to the Father alone and apparently never to the Trinity” (Jesus as God , p. 47 n112); and Rahner: “Nowhere in the New Testament is there to be found a text with qeoV which unquestionably to be referred to the Trinitarian God as a whole existing in three Persons. In by far the greater number of texts qeoV refers to the Father as a Person of the Trinity” (Theological Investigations , p. 143). 2. c.f., BAGD , Louw & Nida , Thayer , Moulton & Milligan , LSJ . 3. Broyles, “What Do We Mean by ‘Godhead,'” Evangelical Quarterly, 50.4 [1978], pp. 223-224. 4. “This fallacy occurs when a late use of a word is read back into earlier literature” (Carson, Fallacies , p. 33). 5. The Oxford English Dictionary defines “Godhead” as: “The character or quality of being God or a god; divine nature or essence; deity.” For a thorough discussion of the term “Godhead,” see Broyles (op. cit.). 6. Joseph Smith, “Sermon by the Prophet – the Christian Godhead – Plurality of Gods,” History of the Church, Vol. 6, pp. 473-479).

Fuente: The Apologists Bible Commentary

Col 2:9. Because in him (in the Personal Christ, and in none other) dwelleth (now and permanently) all the fulness of the Godhead (comp. chap. Col 1:19) bodily. The emphasis rests on the word bodily, which does not mean really, or entirely, or essentially, but in bodily fashion, pointing to Christs human body, not to the Church or to the created world. The fulness of the Godhead dwelt in Him as the Eternal Word (chap. Col 1:19), and because of this when the Word became flesh (Joh 1:14) the fulness dwelt in Him bodily (not strictly in His body). The reference is therefore to the now glorified Christ, but could have no validity were He not the Eternal Word, since all the fulness of the Godhead means all the perfections of Deity; i.e., the Divine Essence. (In Rom 1:20, Divinity points rather to the Divine quality.) The various attempts to weaken the sense scarcely deserve mention. Some peculiar form of error taught at Colossae is doubtless opposed by the language of the Apostle.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

Here St. Paul gives a reason of the foregoing caution against philosophy; for in him, that is, in Christ, dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily; As if he had said, “Let no man impose upon you by a lame and imperfect philosophy, there is no need of that, for now there is introduced an absolute and complete doctrine, namely, that of our Lord Jesus Christ, which has the fulness of all divine wisdom in it, and the fulness of the Godhead dwelling bodily in himself, that is personally and substantially.”

Where note, That the apostle says not, that the Godhead is assistant to Christ, but, that it resideth or dwelleth in him; as the Deity dwelt in the the ark symbolically, so it dwelt in Christ bodily.

Note farther, That Christ is not here said to be filled with the fulness of God, as the church is said to be, Eph 1:23 in regard of the gifts and graces which she had received from him; but the whole fulness of the Godhead is here said to reside in him, which can argue him to be no less than really and truly God, his complete essence dwelleth in him. Well might the apostle therefore add, Ye are complete in him Col 2:10, wanting no requisite to salvation; ye need not go to the philosophers for knowledge, for in Christ you have complete wisdom; he is above all Pagan philosophers and Jewish Rabbies; nay, he is the Head of all principalities and powers; that is, above the highest angel in heaven.

Here observe, That it was the opinion of the Paganish, as it is now of the Popish part of mankind, that Almighty God was too high to be immediately approached, and therefore they applied themselves to angels as mediators betwixt God and them; but the apostle acquaints them, that the angel-mediatorship is vain, since Christ is also their Head and Lord.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

One would not want to be taken away from Christ because in Him is to be found everything essential to being divine. He was not, as some false teachers suggested, a mere emanation from God. Turner says this essence of deity both dwelt and dwelleth in Christ, which is the force of the verb here. The word bodily may well suggest Christ’s incarnation, though there certainly is a spiritual body ( 1Co 15:44 ). The word “Godhead” is only found three times in the New Testament. Paul uses theios in Act 17:29 , which the Greeks used “to denote the divine nature, power, providence,” according to Thayer. In Rom 1:20 , the word is theiotas , which Thayer says means “divinity, divine nature.” In Col 2:9 , the word is theotas , meaning “deity, i.e. the state of being God,” according to Thayer.

Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books

Col 2:9-10. For in him dwelleth Inhabiteth, , continually abideth; all the fulness of the Godhead Believers may be filled with all the fulness of God, Eph 3:19; but in Christ dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead, the most full Godhead, Col 1:19; bodily Really, substantially. The very substance of God, if one might so speak, dwells in Christ in the most full sense. It is plain, says Dr. Doddridge, that the Godhead is an anglicism equivalent to Deity. Compare Act 17:29. And I cannot think that these wonderful words are intended merely to signify that God hath lodged in the hands of Christ a fulness of gifts, to be conferred upon men, as if the passage were merely parallel to Joh 1:16-17, as Mr. Pierce explains it; while Socinus sinks it yet lower, as if it only referred to his complete knowledge of the divine will. I assuredly believe, that as it contains an evident allusion to the Shechinah, in which God dwelt, so it ultimately refers to the adorable mystery of the union of the divine and human natures in the person of the glorious Emmanuel, which makes him such an object of our hope and confidence, as the most exalted creature, with the most glorious endowments, could never of himself be. And ye are complete in him You have in and from him every thing necessary to your salvation, all the wisdom and knowledge, the righteousness and strength, the holiness, support, and comfort that you stand in need of, to enable you to glorify God on earth, and to prepare you for being glorified with him in heaven. But the original expression, , is literally, ye are filled by him. See on Joh 1:16. Christ is filled with God, and ye are filled with, or by, Christ. The fulness of Christ overflows his church, Psa 133:3. He is originally full, but our fulness is derived from him. Who is the head of all principality and power Of angels as well as men. Not from angels, therefore, but from their Head, are we to ask whatever we stand in need of. The supremacy of Christ over all created beings, is asserted in many other passages of Scripture. See the margin. A doctrine this which affords the greatest consolation to the people of God, as it assures them that nothing befalls them without his permission, and that all things shall work together for their good.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Verse 9

Bodily; really, truly.

Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament

CHAPTER FOUR

4. CHRIST OUR COMPLETER

Christ our Completer prepares us for perfect service (vss. 9-14).

Col 2:9-23

Vs, 9 “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.”

(from Daily Bread)

“A preacher once met a cultist on the street who challenged his orthodox views. ‘You say that Jesus Christ is co-equal with the eternal Father, but He cannot be, for no son is ever as old as the one who has begotten him.’ The minister looked at his detractor for a moment and then gave this devastating reply, ‘You yourself have just called God the ETERNAL FATHER. Have you ever thought that statement through? Don’t you realize that God can only be the eternal Father if He has an eternal Son? If you’ rethink your position in the light of the Scriptures, you’d see that ETERNAL FATHERHOOD of necessity demands ETERNAL SONSHIP!”

Christ is God in the most complete manner. Someone once said, “Christ is just as much God as if He had never been man and He is just as much man as if He had never been God.”

ALL THE FULLNESS OF THE GODHEAD not just part of it!

Fuente: Mr. D’s Notes on Selected New Testament Books by Stanley Derickson

2:9 {8} For in {l} him {m} dwelleth {n} all the fulness of the Godhead {o} bodily.

(8) A reason: because only Christ, being God and man, is most perfect, and passes far above all things, so that whoever has him, requires nothing more.

(l) By these words is shown a distinction of the natures.

(m) This word “dwelleth” notes out to us the joining together of those natures, so that God and man, is one Christ.

(n) These words declare that the perfect Godhead is in Christ.

(o) The union of God and man, is substantial and essential.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

"For" introduces another reason for abandoning the false teaching. What his readers had in Christ was completely adequate. He is the very essence of deity in whom this "fullness" permanently resides (cf. Col 1:19). The Greek word translated deity (theotetos) refers to the unique essence of God (cf. Joh 1:1). Divinity (theiotes, Rom 1:20; Act 17:25), on the other hand, refers to the divine quality of God, which other beings may share (cf. Joh 1:14).

"Paul here disposes of the Docetic theory that Jesus had no human body as well as the Cerinthian separation between the man Jesus and the aeon Christ. He asserts plainly the deity and the humanity of Jesus Christ in corporeal form." [Note: Robertson, 4:491.]

This fullness was present in Christ’s bodily form during His earthly ministry. He did not give up His deity when He became a man. It continues in His resurrected bodily form. [Note: See Johnson, 476:309-10.] As those in Christ we, too, partake of His fullness. We have no essential need that He does not supply.

"This statement crowns Paul’s argument. Because Christ is fully God and really man, believers, in union with him, ’are made full’ (ASV), that is, share in his fullness." [Note: Vaughan, p. 199.]

"In the mystery cults which flourished in the apostolic age the great promise which was held out was salvation through enlightenment." [Note: Carson, p. 17.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

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