2. We have, then, as the promise that gleams from these great words, this wonderful prospect, that the Divine love, truth, holi- ness, joy, in all their rich plenitude of all-sufficient abundance, may be showered upon us. The whole Godhead is our possession. For the fulness of God is no far-off remote treasure that lies be- yond human grasp and outside of human experience. Do not we believe that, to use the words of this Apostle in another letter, " it pleased the Father that in him should all the fulness dwell " ? Do we not believe that, to use the words of the same Epistle, " In
^ Mary E. Coleridge. * R. "W. Dale, Lechircs ooi the IJphesians, 257.
EPHESIANS III. 19 205
Christ dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily " ? Is not that abundance of the resources of the whole Deity insphered and incarnated in Jesus Christ our Lord, that it may be near us, and that we may put out our hand and touch it ? This may be a paradox for the understanding, full of metaphysical puzzles and cobwebs, but, for the heart that knows Christ, most true and precious. God is gathered into Jesus Christ, and all the fulness of God, whatever that may mean, is embodied in the Man Christ Jesus, that from Him it may be communicated to every one that is willing. For, to quote words of another of the New Testament teachers, " Of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace." And to quote words in another part of this Epistle, we may all come " unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ," High above us, then, and inaccessible though that awful thought, " the fulness of God," may seem, as the zenith of the unscaleable heavens seems to us poor creatures creeping here upon the flat earth, it comes near, near, near, ever nearer, and at last tabernacles among us, when we think that in Him all the fulness dwells ; and it comes nearer yet and enters into our heart when we think that " of his fulness have all we received."
^ The doubting question of all time is, " Will God dwell with men ? " That God will actually enter a human heart and fill it with His fulness seems too good to be true. As a reviewer of Drummond's Ascent of Man puts it, "And so the author's pur- pose is to prove scientifically that God is love, a teaching that seems to many too good to be true." But it is not too good to be true. The God who makes the cup to overflow, who scatters flowers over prairies in profusion, who sets not twenty, nor hundreds, but thousands upon thousands of stars in the heavens — that God can and will enter the soul with His spiritual fulness.^
(1) The constitution of man admits this fulness. " God created man in his own image; in the image of God created he him." Fulness and God are inseparable, and equally united are fulness and the image of God. There is a natural capacity for " fulness " in man, which has not been destroyed by the entrance of the foreign element of sin.
(2) The redemption that is in Christ Jesus specially provides for this fulness. It restores lost truths and lost objects of hope
' J. G. K. McClure, Loyalty the Soul of Religion, 235.
2o6 OUR HIGH CALLING
and love and joy, and directly aims at filling us with all possible good.
The experience of every Christian is that of having supplied to him, by the Saviour, that which, being essential, has neverthe- less been lacking. The Saviour of men appears to those who come to Him, as the morning star and the rising sun after the darkest of winter nights. He appears as a rock of founda- tion to a builder who has utterly despaired of finding any founda- tion better than sand. He appears as bread to one dying of hunger, and as water to one perishing of thirst. He appears as a robe of righteousness to one whose attire is filthy rags. He appears as the friend that sticketh closer than a brother to one who is outcast and desolate. He comes as wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, and those who receive Him are complete in Him.
(3) The exceeding great and precious promises of God show that those who lack fulness or completeness are straitened, not in God, but through themselves. All that is needful for a true Christian they can have. " He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things ? "
^ I think there is something implanted in man's heart, fallen creature as he is, which defies him to be content with anything but God alone. It is a trace of original majesty, which leaves a mark of what he was before the fall. He is always panting for something fresh ; and that is no sooner attained than it palls upon his taste. And this strong necessity of loving something makes a man form idols for himself, which he invests with fancied perfections, and when all these fade away in his grasp, and he finds their unsubstantiality, he must either become a misanthrope or a Christian. When a man has learned to know the infinite love of God in Christ to him, then he discovers something which will not elude his hold, and an affection which will not grow cold ; for the comparison of God's long-suffering and repeated pardon with his own heartless ingratitude convinces him that it is an unchangeable love.i