Study 3 - How Could All The Fullness Of God Dwell In Jesus? Series

Some time ago a friend of mine discovered that her sister might have to have a kidney operation - it might be necessary to have a new kidney from a donor. My friend offered her own kidney to her sister. This act was a real expression of love. She was saying to her sister, "I am prepared to take a huge risk, so that you might have a full life".

What was the risk? Well, each of us has two kidneys - if one stops functioning, the other one can cope reasonably adequately, but, if my friend gave one kidney to her sister, she would have had no second option. She was willing to take the risk because she loved her sister.

That`s what God`s love is like. He took of Himself; He took everything that He is - all His power, all His glory, and poured it into Jesus. In doing so He says to us, "That`s how much I love you! I love you enough to give you of Myself - my very life, my very truth, my very love, that you might live".

Remember that it wasn`t just WORDS that God gave, nor was it something He MADE. It was HIS VERY SELF that He gave, in Jesus. That tells me that Jesus had all of God in Himself. In fact it tells me that Jesus WAS God, that "In Him was all the fullness of the Godhead bodily" (Colossians 2.9)

he J.W will not accept this. He finds it inconceivable that all the fullness of God could dwell in a man. So, being a logical human being, he tries to explain things away logically. He says, "How could Jesus be God when he spoke to his Father in heaven - your position is impossible!"

He is, of course, mistaken. He says, "The Bible tells us that Jesus was begotten of God. That means he was created by God!"..... but it doesn`t mean anything of the sort. Being begotten (or being `born`) doesn`t mean being created at all. Something that is created comes into being out of nothing, OR out of a different kind of substance from the one who is doing the creating. (When my son made me a calendar - see Study 2 - he made it out of paper and ink, not out of himself!). But being `born` means that LIFE comes out from another IDENTICAL LIFE. The Bible tells us that Jesus was BORN OUT OF GOD - that`s why it uses the term "ONLY-BEGOTTEN", when it speaks of Him.

Let`s take this a bit further. When we BEGET our children (when they are born), they are "PUT OUT" from us i.e. they are substance of our substance. The kind of life they have is the same kind of life that we have. We do not create them - they are present in us in the ovum in the mother`s body, and the sperm in the man`s. They become our very image.

When the Bible speaks about Jesus it says that He was with God at the very beginning, in the Father and the Father in Him. Whenever God was there, so too the Son was there. Yet there came a special event in time, a time when God poured Himself out into the world in a special way so that, in Christ dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. As the Father is the SOURCE of Deity, so the Son is the OUTPOURING of Deity.

The Epistle to the Hebrews tells us that Christ is the effulgence, or the outshining, of the Father`s glory (Hebrews 1.3 compare with John 1.14). Just as the sun never existed without its rays, so God has never existed with the WORD (Christ). They are CO-ETERNAL ("Before Me there was no God formed, and after Me there continued to be none. I - I am Jehovah and besides Me there is no Saviour" Isaiah 43:10-11 NEW WORLD (J.W) TRANSLATION.). If there was no God formed before Jehovah, and none after Him, then the J.W. Doctrine that Jesus is a lesser god falls to the ground. Only if Jesus has always been with God, and is God from the beginning, does He fit in with what this verse says!

Now, This concept of the outpouring of God is difficult to understand. So is the idea that in Jesus all the fullness of God dwells in Jesus bodily. How could it possibly be so? Does the Bible really teach it?

Let`s turn to an unusual part of the Scriptures, to the first Book of Kings chapter 17. This is the story of Elijah who came to the little village of Zarephath. There he met a widow, and, because he was hungry he asked her for something to eat. Now, at that time, there was a famine in the land, so the widow replied, "I`ve only a little flour, and some oil in a cruse (container); when that`s gone there`s nothing left, we`re going to die". Even so Elijah insisted that she made some bread with the little she had - BUT, when she did, she found that there was still just as much flour and oil left in her containers after she had poured it out to make the bread, as there had been when she started!!! She did it time and time again, but the amount left behind always remained the same!!!