it surpasses the power of our understanding to compre- hend, is still a subject of experimental knowledge. We may know how excellent, how wonderful, how free, how disinterested, how long-suffering, how manifold and constant, it is, and that it is infinite. And this is the highest and most sanctifying of all knowledge. Those who thus know the love of Christ towards them, purify themselves even as he is pure.
That ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. The words, εἰς πᾶν τὸ πλήρωμα τοῦ Θεοῦ, are not pro- perly translated, with all the fulness of God ; but unto the complete fulness of God. That is the standard which is to be reached. Πλήρωμα may have its ordi- nary signification, ‘that by which any thing is filled,— or its secondary meaning, abundance, as we would say, ‘the fulness of a stream.’ If the latter sense of the word be retained, Θεοῦ is the genitive of the object,— and ‘the fulness of God’ is that fulness, or plenitude which flows from him, and which he communicates. If the former and ordinary sense be adhered to, then Θεοῦ is the genitive of the subject, and the ‘fulness of God’ is that fulness of which God is full. It is the plenitude of the divine perfection, as in Col. 2, 9, where the fulness of the Godhead is said to dwell in Christ bodily. The majority of commentators take the phrase here in the same general sense. The fulness of God is that excellence, says Chrysostom, of which God himself is full. The expression is then parallel to that in Matt. 5, 48, “Be ye perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” And the truth pre-
CHAP. Ill. VER. 19. 191
sented is the same substantially as that in Eph. 4, 13, “Until we all come—unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ ;” and 1 Cor. 18, 12, “ Then shall I know even as also [am known.” Absolute perfection is the standard to which the believer is to attain. He is predestinated to be conformed to the image of the Son of God, Rom. 8, 29. He is to be perfect as man, as God is perfect as God; and the perfection of man consists in his being full of God; God dwelling in him so as absolutely to con- trol all his cognitions, feelings, and outward actions. This is expressed in Theodoret’s interpretation of the phrase in question: ἵνα τελείως αὐτὸν ἔνοικον δέξ- node.
If, however, the other view be adopted the result is nearly the same. ‘ The fulness of God,” is then the abundance of gifts and grace which flows from God ; and the meaning of the whole clause is: ‘ That ye may be filled until the whole plenitude of the divine benefi- cence has passed over to you.’ The end contemplated is the reception of the donorwm plenitudo, or the dono- rum Dei perfectio. ‘“ He who has Christ,” says Calvin, “has every thing that is required to our perfection in God, for this is what is meant by the fulness of God.”
In favour, however, of the former view is the or- dinary meaning of the word πλήρωμα, the meaning of the phrase fulness of God, in other passages, the analogy of Scripture as exhibited in the parallel pas- sages above quoted, and the simplicity of the interpre-